Dam burst causes deaths, home loss

Press, 22 April 1986, Page 10

Dam burst causes deaths, home loss

NZPA-AFP Colombo Five people died and some 10,000 lost their homes when the Kantalai reservoir dam in northeastern Sri Lanka broke yesterday, police and officials said. Waters gushing out from the breach — which opened early in the morning and had widened to about 23m by night — inundated several villages, said the Trincomalee District Administrator, Mr D. M. Ariyaratne. Several hundred hectares of rice fields were flooded and I.6km of rail track washed away, he said. Railway authorities said it would take at least two weeks to repair the track and have the trains running again to the city of Trincomalee. Damage to a main road had made access to Kantalai by road and rail difficult, other sources said. The Sri Lanka National Security Minister, Mr Lalith Athulathmudali, said that the waters were subsiding but a full casualty count had not been made. He said more than 10,000 people were homeless and some 8000 had been accommodated in makeshift camps. An Army sentry from a nearby camp had spotted the break and authorities had at least an hour to alert some of the people in the area to leave, he said.