KOSLANDA, Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka yesterday reduced to 38 the number of dead and missing from a mudslide at a tea plantation after giving an initial toll of over 300.
Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said interviews with survivors and officials found the number of victims was far below early estimates by disaster management authorities.
“There had been a lot of confusion about the casualties, but we arrived at our figures after a thorough and a proper investigation,” Rohana told AFP.
“We have all the names of the 38 people who are dead or missing.”
Five bodies have been recovered, Rohana said, as relief workers kept up the search for more victims of Wednesday’s disaster.
Authorities initially estimated the number of presumed dead at 300 and then reduced the toll to 100 three days ago.
Police said they had discovered many of the people thought to be dead or missing were at work or school when their homes were swallowed by mud at the Meeriyabedda tea estate, 200 kilometres east of the capital Colombo.
The number of houses destroyed has also been lowered to 66 from an earlier figure
of 150.
The army used sniffer dogs and deployed more heavy excavators yesterday to clear the disaster area as relief workers looked
for more bodies.
AFP
