Sri Lanka recorded 24 deaths in the first 10 days of June as most of the country of 20 million grappled with an extreme start to the island’s main monsoon season.
Data from Sri Lanka’s Disaster Management Center showed 206,000 people were affected by flooding and landslides across the country’s 25 districts. Most local authorities shuttered schools for several days. In addition to 24 confirmed fatalities, a further three people remained missing. In the capital, Colombo, crocodiles were seen swimming around flooded neighborhoods.
Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka experienced record temperatures in 2023 leading into another punishing heatwave for months in 2024 — However, seasonal patterns shifted in late May this year. Sri Lanka’s disaster agency attributed some of the recent damage to Cyclone Remal, which displaced tens of thousands when the storm made landfall over Bangladesh on May 26. Research shows climate change is making the South Asia monsoon increasingly erratic, introducing dangerous levels of risks for the world’s most-populated region.
“This intense destruction and disruption could bring huge long-term damage to children’s lives,” Save the Children said in a statement.
Banner image of rain in Sri Lanka by Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
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