Colombo flooded due to illegal constructions beside the Kelani River

Colombo flooded due to illegal constructions beside the Kelani River

The incident of overflowing from unexpected places of the Kelani River has become an issue in addition to illegal activities of constructions at unauthorized sites of low lands causing delay for water to drain out as pointed out by Minister of Disaster Management Anura Priyadarshana Yapa at a media

briefing held yesterday (22).

"The reason for this issue is that there is no proper land management in Sri Lanka. There is a large number of unauthorized filling of land and unauthorized constructions as well. As for this reason not only the space where flood water has not been sufficient to be evacuated and as a consequence the water has overflowed and it takes some time for the water to drain out. This issue is a complex problem that could  well affect the future too. In the future I would take steps to amend the Act in this respect after getting approval from the National Building Research Institute to make all such constructions"  the Minister said.

In the meantime the Director General of the Irrigation Department, Engineer Mr. Saman Weerasingha too expressed his ideas to News First this morning by confirming this same opinion. What he said was that for a long period of time unauthorized constructions were being put up in these areas by filling up the lands and that the authorities were hampered by the strong hands of politicos in such a manner that they could not intercede in those cases. He has pointed out that these reasons directly contributed to the Kelani River overflowing at locations such as Sitawaka, Kolonnawa and Kaduwela.  Whatever it is, what he says is that the only step that could be adopted in this respect at present to solve this issue is to destroy all illegal constructions and to get rid of such constructions thereby.