The slides hit the villages of Siripura, Pallebage and Elagipitya in the Aranayake area of Kegalle District.
Advertisement
The official death toll stands at 35.
“Army commandos rescued all of them this morning”, Jayaweera said, adding that 266 troops in total have been deployed for relief and rescue operations.
Neville Nanayakkara, director general of the Sri Lanka Red Cross Societysaid, “around 300-400 people are feared to have died in the Aranayaka landslide”.
Red Cross officials said that rescued operations had been hampered because reaching the mountainous area, some 140km from the capital Colombo, was treacherous.
Over 350,000 people have been affected by strong winds and heavy rains which began on Saturday, while 140,000 have been moved to temporary camps.
Police said another landslide at Bulathkopitiya, also in Kegalle district, had buried at least 16 people.
“This is the worst torrential rain we have seen since 2010”, said Pradeep Kodippili, a spokesman for the disaster management centre.
“I heard a huge sound like a plane crashing into the earth”, said 52-year-old A.G. Kamala, according to the AP.
The Disaster Management Centre said six rows of houses were damaged, some of which were completely buried under the debris.
The same rains have also caused severe flooding in cities including Colombo, where tens of thousands of homes were at least partially inundated.
Almost 350,000 people have been hit by flooding in Sri Lanka and 200,000 are sheltering in state-run welfare centres.
Rescuers in Sri Lanka are searching for scores of people missing after massive landslides following days of rain.
Advertisement
The center had reported 11 deaths as of Tuesday due to landslides and electrocution. Nine districts in the country have been given landslide warnings. Two months before that, dozens of tea plantation workers were killed when mudslides buried their hillside homes.
