Tuesday, May 24, 2016

The Floods: Get Me A Pencil

By Yudhanjaya Wijeratne –May 24, 2016

Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

If there is such a thing as too much goodwill, I think I’ve seen it. Gripped by a desire to help out our fellow Sri Lankans, we’ve cooked, screamed, delivered, run supplies by the truckload and picked clean the shelves of our supermarkets.

The result? Incredible good – people fed, clothed, supported to another day by people they’ve never even heard of; and at the same time, incredible waste – truckloads of spoiled food, supplies being shuttled with no tracking or double-checking, massive oversupply to areas like Aranayake and Wellampitiya while camps like Wattala struggled to make do, well-meaning volunteers heading out to areas they’re barely capable of surviving in, let alone helping. And chaos on every possible front.

I don’t blame anyone. To be honest, I’ll take the good and the bad over indifference any day. And yes, there’s plenty of indifference – I see enough of it walking into work. But enough people reached out to truly make the gigantic task ahead of us bearable.

The situation right now

Major areas that were hit – judging by severity and freqeuncy of donation requests – are Aranayake, Wellampitiya, Kelaniya, Wattala. Secondary points seem to be Kilinochchi, Kolonnawa, Biyagama, Malwana, Athurugiriya, Avissawella and Kaduwela. New camps have been set up Atkalupahana, Digala, Maniyangama and Boralankada. There are isolated pockets popping up all over the map that are unaccounted for – usually clusters of between 100 and 200 people.

Aranayake is landslide turf. It’s getting the most amount of media attention, and is oversupplied with dry rations (rice, dhal, soya, milk powder) and in need of with what I call Stage 2 essentials – candles, clothes, soap, underwear – all the requirements that come immediately after a meal in the belly.

Kelaniya is muddy diseased hellhole 101 from what I’ve seen. Water is everywhere and disease is spreading, even among the volunteers. It’s undersupplied on every front but badly needs medicine, medical personnel and swimmers to combat the conditions.

Wellampitiya is returning to normalcy. While most of the electricity grid is out, people are moving back in and cleaning up.

Wattala is a network of 9 camps held together mostly by one central Army camp, and it’s the subject of sporadic lack of cooked food. Dry rations are being stocked and it’s limping along two days at a time.

Atkalupahana, Digala, Maniyangama and Boralankada are brand-new camps sorely in need of everything, including dry rations.

Biyagama, Malwana, Kolonnawa/IDH and Athurugiriya are flooded in pockets, and while they’re sorted for rations, they need underwear, candles, soap, toothbrushes, medicine – more Stage 2.

A complete list of items required has been released by the DMC and is available here.

Note that this may or may not tally with our observations. I make no claim for the accuracy of the DMC. Here’s a general list for cleaning and reclamation put together by one of my co-workers for donations. For posterity, here’s the old Google sheet we were using a couple of days ago.

What is the government doing?

Touching children who clearly don’t want to be touched.

Oh, and they’ve allocated Rs 150 million for flood relief, apparently. Let me put that in perspective. Here’s the math, courtesy of Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana.