Disaster agency warns that monsoon storms are adding more rain and making hillsides unstable.
Published On 7 Dec 2025
Sri Lankan authorities have issued new landslide warnings with rains lashing areas already devastated by a powerful cyclone, as the death toll rose to 618, while other parts of Asia continue to grapple with the scale of the destruction and mounting casualties that have exceeded 1,800.
The Disaster Management Centre (DMC) warned on Sunday that monsoon storms were adding more rain and making hillsides unstable, including the central mountainous region and the northwestern midlands.
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More than two million people – nearly 10 percent of the population – have been affected by last week’s climate crisis-spurred floods and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah, the worst on the island this century.
On Sunday, helicopters and planes were being used to supply communities cut off by landslides in the centre of the country.
The Sri Lanka Air Force said it had received a planeload of relief supplies from Myanmar on Sunday, the latest batch of foreign aid.
The government has confirmed 618 dead – 464 from the lush tea-growing central region – while 209 people remain unaccounted for.
The number of people in state-run refugee camps had dropped to 100,000 from a peak of 225,000 as floodwaters receded across the island by Sunday, the DMC said.
More than 75,000 homes were damaged, including close to 5,000 that were destroyed, it added.
An aerial view of submerged houses in a flooded area caused by heavy rainfall following Cyclone Ditwah in Niyamgamdora in Sri Lanka [Akila Jayawardena/Reuters]
A senior official had said recovery and reconstruction might cost up to $7bn.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Friday it was considering Sri Lanka’s request for an additional $200m to help with rebuilding.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told parliament on Friday that Sri Lanka’s economy had made a significant recovery, but was not strong enough to withstand the latest shock alone.
Elsewhere in Asia, the death toll from floods and landslides that hit Indonesia’s Sumatra island has reached more than 900, according to authorities.
Survivors in the Aceh Tamiang region, on the northeast coast of Sumatra, said they were forced to walk for an hour on Saturday, scrambling over scattered logs and passing overturned cars, in order to find aid from the government.
A clothing trader in the village of Kampung Dalam, Joko Sofyan, said residents had no choice but to drink the same water that destroyed their homes as they waited for aid, causing children to fall ill.
Many residents are still haunted by the 2004 tsunami that devastated Aceh and killed about 230,000 people globally, with 160,000 in Aceh alone.
Thailand has also reported at least 276 deaths and Malaysia two, while at least two people were killed in Vietnam after heavy rains triggered a series of landslides.
The Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur reported heavy flooding in recent days, while the country’s weather agency MetMalaysia issued on Saturday a thunderstorm warning for four states and the Federal Territory of Labuan.
Meanwhile, south-central Vietnam has been lashed by weeks of heavy rain, submerging hundreds of thousands of homes in coastal tourism hotspots and causing deadly landslides in mountainous regions.
