Tracing Sri Lanka’s Crisis History: From Early Warnings to Cyclone Ditwah

1. Executive Summary: A Catastrophe of Governance and Geography

In the closing weeks of 2025, the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, a nation already grappling with the protracted aftershocks of a severe economic crisis, was struck by a hydrometeorological event of historic magnitude. Cyclonic Storm Ditwah, originating in the Bay of Bengal, made landfall on the island’s eastern coast on November 28, unleashing a deluge that would expose the profound fragility of the nation’s disaster management architecture.¹ While the storm itself was a formidable atmospheric anomaly—characterized by the rare “Blue Ocean Effect” which allowed it to maintain intensity over land—the ensuing humanitarian catastrophe was arguably man-made, the result of a systemic collapse in early warning dissemination, infrastructure maintenance, and institutional coordination.³

As of December 2, 2025, the human toll of this disaster has reached grim proportions. Official government figures confirm 465 fatalities, with a further 366 individuals reported missing—numbers that are expected to rise as search and rescue teams penetrate the isolated, landslide-ravaged communities of the central highlands.¹ The disaster has affected over 1.5 million citizens, representing nearly 7% of the total population, and has forced approximately 233,015 people into 1,441 safety centers.¹ The economic impact is equally devastating, with critical infrastructure including the national power grid, transportation networks, and agricultural supply chains suffering severe degradation, leading to food price spikes of up to 200% in urban centers.⁴

This report, commissioned to investigate the allegations of early warning failures and to contextualize the disaster within Sri Lanka’s historical risk profile, finds that the catastrophe was preceded by a series of missed opportunities and administrative lapses. Specifically, the investigation highlights the failure to act on a credible meteorological prediction issued as early as November 12, 2025.⁵ More damningly, it reveals that the country’s network of 77 tsunami and multi-hazard early warning towers—the crown jewel of post-2004 disaster preparedness—was entirely non-functional at the time of the cyclone due to the non-payment of satellite service fees and technical obsolescence.⁶

Furthermore, the response was marred by a “digital and linguistic divide.” Critical lifesaving information was disseminated primarily in Sinhala, leaving the Tamil-speaking minority in the highly vulnerable plantation sector without actionable intelligence on landslide risks.⁵ This breakdown in “last-mile” connectivity mirrors failures observed in previous disasters, suggesting a deeply entrenched inability to learn from history.

The following comprehensive analysis dissects the meteorological anatomy of Cyclone Ditwah, performs a forensic audit of the warning system collapse, chronicles the humanitarian impact, and situates this event within the broader history of Sri Lankan natural disasters from the 2004 Tsunami to the present day.

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2. The Atmospheric Anomaly: Anatomy of Cyclone Ditwah

To understand the scale of the disaster, one must first appreciate the unique and punishing nature of the meteorological event itself. Cyclone Ditwah was not a “textbook” tropical storm; its behavior defied standard climatological models for the North Indian Ocean, catching both the public and, to some extent, the authorities off guard.

2.1 Genesis and Intensification

The system that would become Cyclone Ditwah began its life cycle in late November 2025 as a low-pressure area in the southwest Bay of Bengal.⁸ By November 26, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and the Sri Lankan Department of Meteorology (DoM) had upgraded the system to a depression.⁹ The storm was named “Ditwah” following the protocol of the WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones, a name contributed by Yemen referring to the ecologically rich Detwah Lagoon in the Socotra Archipelago.⁹

The intensification of Ditwah was fueled by anomalously high sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Bay of Bengal, ranging between 28-30°C, well above the 26.5°C threshold required for cyclogenesis.⁸ Low vertical wind shear allowed the system to organize rapidly, developing a defined cyclonic structure within 24 to 36 hours of its initial designation as a depression.⁸

2.2 The “Blue Ocean Effect”: A Paradigm Shift in Inland Risk

The most critical and destructive characteristic of Cyclone Ditwah was its persistence over the Sri Lankan landmass. In classical meteorology, a tropical cyclone acts as a heat engine driven by the evaporation of moisture from warm ocean waters. Typically, when a cyclone makes landfall, it is cut off from this fuel source, and friction with the terrain tears the circulation apart, leading to rapid dissipation.

However, Ditwah exhibited the “Blue Ocean Effect” (sometimes referred to as the Brown Ocean Effect), a phenomenon where a tropical cyclone maintains or even intensifies its strength over land.³ This occurs when the soil is sufficiently saturated to mimic the moisture profile of the ocean. In the weeks leading up to the cyclone, Sri Lanka had been experiencing an active Northeast Monsoon, which had already saturated the ground across the dry and intermediate zones.²

When Ditwah moved inland on November 28, it did not encounter the dry friction that usually kills storms. Instead, it tapped into the latent heat released from the moisture-laden soil, allowing it to maintain its vortex structure and wind speeds deep into the interior.³ This “zombie storm” behavior meant that districts far from the coast—such as Kandy, Badulla, and Nuwara Eliya—were subjected to cyclonic wind forces and rainfall intensities typically reserved for coastal belts. The failure of local predictive models to account for this effect likely contributed to the underestimation of the threat in the central highlands.

2.3 Hydrological Violence: The Rainfall Deluge

The interaction of the cyclonic system with the central mountain massif resulted in catastrophic orographic precipitation. As the moisture-rich winds were forced up the slopes of the central hills, they cooled and condensed, releasing torrential rain.

Region	Reported 24-Hour Rainfall (Est.)	Impact
Kandy District	> 490 mm	Triggered the Kudamake landslide and urban flash floods.10
Western Province	> 350 mm	Overwhelmed the Kelani River basin, inundating Colombo suburbs.4
Dry Zone (North Central)	> 200 mm	Filled reservoirs to capacity, necessitating emergency sluice gate openings.4

This volume of water—falling on already saturated ground—created a “hydrological shock.” River basins like the Kelani, Mahaweli, and Malwathu Oya saw water levels rise with terrifying speed. In the Kelani River, which borders the capital Colombo, the floodwaters did not recede quickly due to the “backing up” effect caused by the high storm surge at the river mouth and the sustained high discharge from upstream.⁴ This prolonged the inundation of low-lying areas like Wellampitiya, turning urban neighborhoods into lakes for days.

2.4 Trajectory and Exit

After devastating the island, the system exited towards the Indian coastline. By November 30, Ditwah had moved into the Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar, re-emerging over water and threatening the Tamil Nadu coast of India.¹¹ The storm eventually weakened into a deep depression as it paralleled the Indian coast, but its “tail” continued to whip Sri Lanka with feeder bands of rain, hampering initial relief efforts.¹² The slow movement of the system—traveling at speeds as low as 10 km/h—meant that the duration of exposure to extreme weather was prolonged, maximizing the damage to infrastructure and housing.¹³

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3. The Warning That Wasn’t: A Forensic Audit of Systemic Failure

The sheer physical force of Cyclone Ditwah explains the damage to infrastructure, but it does not explain the high loss of life. For that, one must look to the failure of the early warning systems. The investigation reveals a cascade of errors, from the strategic to the technical, that left the population exposed.

3.1 The Ignored Prophet: The November 12 Prediction

The most contentious aspect of the government’s response is the allegation that it ignored clear scientific intelligence. On November 12, 2025, Athula Karunanayake, the Director General of the Department of Meteorology, appeared on a national television program (Derana’s ‘Big Focus’).³ In this public forum, he issued a remarkably specific long-range forecast: a depression would likely form in the Bay of Bengal by November 14, with the potential to develop into a severe weather system affecting the island.⁵

This warning provided the state with a “golden window” of nearly two weeks to prepare. In disaster management theory, this is the phase for “anticipatory action”—clearing drainage canals, checking reservoir levels, prepositioning relief stocks, and verifying communication lines. However, the evidence suggests that this intelligence was treated as routine weather trivia rather than actionable security data. There was no convening of the National Security Council, no activation of the National Emergency Operation Plan (NEOP), and no public mobilization campaign.⁵

Critics argue that this inertia is symptomatic of a bureaucratic culture that requires a disaster to happen before it reacts, rather than acting on probabilistic risk. By the time the “Red Alert” was issued on November 27, the window for orderly evacuation had closed, and the chaos of crisis response had begun.¹⁴

3.2 The Silence of the Towers: Infrastructure Collapse

Perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the post-disaster inquiry is the status of the physical early warning infrastructure. Following the 2004 Tsunami, Sri Lanka invested heavily—with international donor support—in a network of 77 Disaster Early Warning Towers.⁶ These towers, equipped with sirens and loudspeakers, were strategically placed along the coastal belt to warn of tsunamis and cyclones.

Status at Impact:

During Cyclone Ditwah, not a single one of these 77 towers was operational.

The Root Cause:

The failure was not meteorological but financial and administrative. The Director General of the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), Maj. Gen. Sampath Kotuwegoda, admitted that the towers had been offline for approximately three years.6 The towers relied on a satellite communication link provided by a US-based service provider to trigger the alarms remotely from Colombo. The annual fee for this service was approximately Rs. 7 million (roughly $23,000 USD at late 2025 exchange rates).15

Due to Sri Lanka’s severe foreign exchange crisis and bureaucratic negligence, this fee was left unpaid. Consequently, the service provider suspended the link, rendering the entire network useless.⁷ The absurdity of the situation—that a multi-million dollar infrastructure investment failed for want of a nominal maintenance fee—has become a focal point of public anger. The DMC was forced to rely on “backup methods” such as police runners and phone calls, which lack the speed and simultaneity of the siren network.¹⁶

3.3 The Digital Divide: Language as a Barrier to Survival

Sri Lanka is a linguistically diverse nation, with Sinhala and Tamil being the official languages. However, the investigation into the DMC’s communication strategy during Ditwah reveals a dangerous monolingual bias that effectively disenfranchised the Tamil-speaking minority.

Social Media Audit:

An analysis of the DMC’s official Facebook page—a primary channel for real-time updates—between November 25 and November 29 revealed a stark disparity. Of 68 posts released during the critical window, only a dozen contained information in Tamil.5 Furthermore, the content was not equivalent.

• Sinhala Updates: Contained granular details on road closures, specific landslide risk zones, examination postponements, and logistical advice.
• Tamil Updates: Were limited to generic flood warnings. Crucially, no specific landslide warnings were issued in Tamil, despite the fact that the plantation sector in the central highlands—the area most prone to landslides—is predominantly inhabited by Tamil-speaking communities.⁵

This “information apartheid” meant that while a Sinhala speaker in Kandy might know to evacuate a specific slope, a Tamil speaker in the same district might remain unaware of the imminent threat. This is not merely a communication error; it is a violation of the constitutional right to equal protection and safety.¹⁰

3.4 The Failure of DEWN (Disaster and Emergency Warning Network)

The DEWN system, launched in 2009, was designed to bridge the “last mile” gap using mobile technology. It utilizes Cell Broadcast (CB) technology to send mass alerts to all phones in a specific geographic area, regardless of network congestion, and SMS for targeted warnings.¹⁷

During Ditwah, anecdotal evidence suggests that the system underperformed. Many survivors in affected areas reported receiving no alerts at all.⁵ Several factors likely contributed to this:

• Technology Mix: The efficacy of Cell Broadcast depends on the readiness of the mobile network operators and the settings on user devices. Unlike SMS, CB is not “store and forward”—if a phone is off or out of range at the moment of broadcast, the message is lost.
• Smartphone Configuration: Modern smartphones often require specific configuration to receive emergency alerts. Without a public awareness campaign to ensure these settings were active, many devices may have silently filtered out the warnings.¹⁸
• Targeting Precision: The system struggles with micro-targeting. Alerts were often too broad (“Heavy rain in Western Province”) rather than specific (“Flood wave approaching Wellampitiya in 1 hour”), leading to “warning fatigue” where citizens ignore generic alerts.¹⁹

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4. The Unfolding Crisis: Chronology of Impact

The disaster unfolded not as a singular event but as a cascading series of failures across the island’s geography.

4.1 Phase 1: Landfall and Coastal Inundation (Nov 28)

As Ditwah made landfall, the eastern districts of Batticaloa and Trincomalee experienced the initial wind damage. However, the true crisis began as the storm pushed inland. The slow movement of the system allowed feeder bands to pump continuous moisture over the island, leading to the “training effect” where rainstorms repeatedly moved over the same areas.⁴

4.2 Phase 2: The Highland Deluge and Landslides (Nov 28-29)

The central highlands act as a barrier to atmospheric flow. As the cyclonic winds hit the mountains, the orographic lift caused extreme rainfall intensities.

• The Kudamake Disaster: In the Kandy District, the village of Kudamake was obliterated by a flash flood/landslide event on the night of November 27. Survivors described a “13-foot wall of water” that descended without warning.²⁰ This suggests a “dam-break” style event, possibly caused by a temporary blockage in a waterway upstream giving way (a phenomenon known as a landslide dam outburst flood). The death toll in this single incident reached 66.²⁰
• Badulla and Nuwara Eliya: These districts, characterized by steep slopes and tea plantations, saw multiple earth slips. The soil, already saturated by the monsoon, liquefied under the intensity of the cyclone’s rain. The failure to issue Tamil-language warnings here was particularly lethal for estate workers living in “line rooms” in vulnerable valleys.²¹

4.3 Phase 3: The Urban Flood (Nov 29 – Dec 1)

As the water from the highlands drained towards the coast, it overwhelmed the river systems. The Kelani River, which flanks the commercial capital Colombo, rose to critical levels.

• Infrastructure Paralysis: The flooding of the Kelani River cut off major entry routes into Colombo. The Biyagama Free Trade Zone, a hub of economic activity, faced inundation.
• The Rescue Challenge: In suburbs like Kolonnawa and Wellampitiya, residents were trapped on rooftops. The Sri Lankan Navy and Air Force deployed small boats and helicopters for rescue operations. One dramatic rescue involved a German tourist and locals trapped on a roof that began to collapse under the downdraft of a rescue helicopter, forcing a switch to naval evacuation.²²

4.4 Phase 4: The Tail Effect and Secondary Disasters (Dec 1 onwards)

Even as the cyclone exited towards India, the “tail” of the system continued to bring rain. This hampered relief efforts and caused secondary landslides. The misery was compounded by the collapse of the sanitation grid, with floodwaters contaminating wells and raising the specter of waterborne diseases.²

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5. Humanitarian Consequences: A Nation on Its Knees

The humanitarian footprint of Cyclone Ditwah is vast, affecting the social, economic, and physical fabric of the nation.

5.1 Analysis of Casualties

The death toll of 465 (as of Dec 2) is significant not just in number but in demographics.¹ A large proportion of the victims appear to be from marginalized communities—estate workers in the hills and urban poor in the floodplains of Colombo. The high number of missing persons (366) suggests that the final toll could surpass 800, making this one of the deadliest disasters since the 2004 Tsunami.¹

5.2 Displacement and Shelter

With 233,015 people displaced, the government’s capacity to provide shelter is stretched to the breaking point.¹ The 1,441 safety centers are largely schools and religious buildings.

• Conditions: Reports indicate overcrowding and a lack of sanitation facilities. The breakdown of the water supply means that providing clean drinking water to these centers is a logistical nightmare.²
• COVID-19/Disease Risk: While the report materials do not explicitly mention a pandemic, the crowding in shelters poses a high risk for the spread of communicable diseases like influenza and dysentery.

5.3 Economic Shock

The disaster strikes an economy that is barely recovering from a sovereign debt default.

• Agriculture: The destruction of paddy fields in the North Central province and vegetable farms in the Central province has created an immediate supply shock. Vegetable prices in Colombo surged by up to 200% overnight.⁴ This fuels inflation, hitting the urban poor hardest.
• Reconstruction Costs: Initial estimates suggest the damage could cost the nation up to $7 billion.¹² For a country with limited fiscal space, this will likely necessitate further borrowing or a diversion of funds from other essential services, potentially delaying the nation’s exit from its economic crisis.

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6. Historical Context: A Cycle of Forgetting

To label Cyclone Ditwah an “unprecedented” event is to ignore the cyclical nature of Sri Lanka’s risk profile. The country has a long history of hydrometeorological disasters, and a troubling history of failing to maintain the systems built in their aftermath.

6.1 The Shadow of 2004

The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami was the “Day Zero” of modern disaster management in Sri Lanka. It killed 35,000 people and led to the creation of the Disaster Management Act No. 13 of 2005.¹⁰

• The Promise: The creation of the DMC and the installation of the warning towers were supposed to ensure that “never again” would Sri Lankans die for lack of a warning.
• The Reality: The Ditwah disaster shows that the hardware (towers) was installed, but the software (maintenance culture, funding, personnel training) was neglected. The system was allowed to rot.

6.2 The Warning of 2016: Aranayake

The 2016 Aranayake landslide, which killed 127 people, was a precursor to the landslides of 2025.²³

• Similarity: Both events involved heavy rainfall triggering slides in areas identified as high-risk by the NBRO.
• Failure: Despite hazard mapping, people continued to live in these “Red Zones.” The failure is one of land-use enforcement and resettlement policy. The government has failed to provide safe, viable alternatives for these communities, forcing them to remain in the path of danger.

6.3 The 2017 Floods: The Breakdown of Communication

In May 2017, floods killed over 200 people. Post-disaster inquiries revealed a “breakdown in reports getting through” and a failure to issue early warnings for sudden rainfall.²⁴

• Repetition: The exact same accusations—bureaucratic bottlenecks, failure to translate weather data into public warnings—have resurfaced in 2025. This suggests that the lessons of 2017 were identified but not learned. The institutional inertia has proven resistant to reform.

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7. The Institutional Architecture: Technocracy vs. Bureaucracy

Sri Lanka’s disaster management framework is complex, involving multiple agencies with overlapping mandates. Ditwah exposed the seams in this patchwork.

Agency	Mandate	Performance in Ditwah
Disaster Management Centre (DMC)	Coordination & Dissemination	Failed: Towers inactive; communication gaps; slow mobilization.10
Dept. of Meteorology (DoM)	Forecasting	Mixed: Accurate long-range prediction (Nov 12) but failed to communicate urgency effectively.3
Nat. Building Research Org (NBRO)	Landslide Risk	Technical Success/Ops Failure: Risk maps existed, but warnings didn’t reach the “last mile” in Tamil.25
Irrigation Department	River Management	Overwhelmed: Sluice gate management contributed to flash floods; communication with downstream areas was lagged.4

The Coordination Deficit:

The fundamental flaw appears to be the lack of a “Command and Control” structure that overrides agency silos during a crisis. The DMC is supposed to play this role, but without the authority to compel other agencies or the budget to maintain its own infrastructure, it often acts as a mere post-box for information rather than a crisis commander.

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8. The Geopolitics of Relief: Aid as Soft Power

In the vacuum left by state failure, international actors have stepped in, turning the disaster response into a stage for geopolitical dynamics.

8.1 India’s “First Responder” Role

India’s response was immediate and robust, operationalized under Operation Sagar Bandhu (Friend of the Sea).

• Assets Deployed: The Indian Air Force deployed C-17 Globemaster and C-130J Super Hercules aircraft. These heavy lifters brought in critical supplies, including “BHISHM” cubes (mobile hospitals) and a specialized Para Field Hospital unit.²⁶
• Naval Support: Indian naval ships docked in Colombo diverted their own rations to feed flood victims, a symbolic gesture of solidarity.²⁸
• Significance: This operation reinforces India’s “Neighborhood First” policy and asserts its role as the net security provider in the Indian Ocean Region, contrasting with the slower mobilization of other international actors.

8.2 The UN and Multilateral Response

The UN Resident Coordinator, Marc-André Franche, activated the humanitarian cluster system. Agencies like IOM (International Organization for Migration) and WFP (World Food Programme) focused on the displaced populations.²⁹ The UN’s role has been critical in providing technical assistance for “Rapid Needs Assessments,” helping the government quantify the damage to appeal for further funds.

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9. Conclusion: The Cost of Negligence

Cyclone Ditwah was a natural disaster, but the scale of the tragedy was a governance failure. The investigation leads to several inescapable conclusions:

1. The “Hardware” Fallacy: Building towers is useless if you do not budget for the satellite bill. The failure of the 77 towers is a symbol of a development model that prioritizes ribbon-cutting ceremonies over long-term maintenance.
2. The “Software” Glitch: The exclusion of Tamil speakers from critical warnings reveals a deep fissure in the social contract. Disaster management cannot be “Sinhala-default” in a multi-ethnic society.
3. The “Golden Hour” Missed: The failure to act on the November 12 forecast proves that intelligence without political will is impotent. The state machinery lacks a trigger mechanism to convert scientific probability into bureaucratic action.
4. The Climate Reality: The “Blue Ocean Effect” is a warning that the old rules of geography no longer apply. Sri Lanka can no longer count on the land to kill cyclones.

Recommendations for the Future:

• Financial Ring-fencing: Maintenance budgets for early warning infrastructure must be declared “sovereign security assets,” immune from fiscal cuts or debt restructuring austerity.
• Linguistic Equity Protocol: The DMC must be legally mandated to broadcast all alerts in Sinhala, Tamil, and English simultaneously, using pre-translated templates to ensure speed.
• Low-Tech Redundancy: Reliance on high-tech satellite systems should be backed up by low-tech, robust solutions like HF radio networks and community-based siren systems that do not require foreign subscriptions.
• Accountability: A transparent inquiry must be held to determine who authorized the non-payment of the satellite fees, and administrative accountability must be enforced to prevent recurrence.

In the final analysis, Cyclone Ditwah serves as a brutal audit of Sri Lanka’s resilience. The storm has passed, but the questions it raised about the competence, equity, and preparedness of the state remain hanging over the island like the dark clouds of the monsoon.

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Statistical Appendix

Table 1: The Human Cost of Cyclone Ditwah (Data as of Dec 2, 2025)

Metric	Count	Context
Confirmed Deaths	465	Highest since 2004 Tsunami.1
Missing Persons	366	Likely to be declared deceased after 7 days.1
Displaced Population	233,015	Sheltered in 1,441 centers.2
Total Affected	1,500,000+	~7% of national population.1
Houses Destroyed	565	Fully collapsed.2
Houses Damaged	20,271	Partially structural damage.2

Table 2: Timeline of the “Lost” Warnings

Date	Event	Institutional Action/Inaction
Nov 12	DoM Director General predicts depression formation on TV.	Ignored: No National Council meeting called.5
Nov 26	Depression forms in Bay of Bengal.	Routine: Standard marine warnings issued; no land evacuation orders.
Nov 27	System intensifies to Cyclone Ditwah.	Reactive: Red Alerts issued, but too late for orderly evacuation of remote areas.
Nov 28	Landfall & “Blue Ocean” intensification.	System Failure: 77 Warning Towers silent due to unpaid bills.6
Nov 29	Peak Impact (Landslides/Floods).	Communication Failure: No Tamil language landslide alerts on social media.5
Nov 30	State of Emergency Declared.	Too Late: Action taken only after mass casualties confirmed.28

Table 3: Comparative Analysis of Major Disasters

Disaster	Warning Time	Primary Failure Mode	Casualties
2004 Tsunami	None (felt tremor)	No detection system; no communication network.	~35,000
2016 Aranayake	Days (Rainfall)	Risk mapped but resettlement failed; “Last Mile” gap.	127
2017 Floods	Hours	Meteorology Dept failed to predict intensity; delayed warnings.	~212
2025 Ditwah	2 Weeks	Administrative negligence (unpaid bills); Language bias; Inertia.	465+

Report filed by Senior Disaster Risk Analyst, Global Crisis Watch.

Date: December 3, 2025

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