New York Times | Reuters | August 31, 2001
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka will need a major international relief effort to help more than a million of its people, many of them children, battle its worst drought in half a century, aid agencies said Friday.
The U.S.-based World Vision organization said agencies would need to distribute an estimated 45,000 tons of food over the next six months even if rains return soon to the island's parched southeastern corner.
"In terms of impact on the local population, this is about as bad as I've seen," Al Dyer, spokesman for World Vision, told a news conference.
"Even if the rains come in October there will be no food security till the next harvest in February," he said.
The drought in the normally lush tropical island was first brought to the world's attention two weeks ago by the Red Cross which appealed for $700,000 in emergency relief for an estimated 300,000 people.
The Sri Lankan government has since raised estimates of the number of people affected by the drought to around 1.5 million across seven of the country's 25 districts.
The Red Cross said doctors were reporting cases of malnutrition among children and Dyer said his organization has reported a 30 percent increase in low-weight births.
The government's Social Services Department said more than 175,000 of the victims were aged under five.
Worst hit is the Hambantota district, one of Sri Lanka's driest and poorest areas, where the rains have failed for more than 21 months.
Most of its residents are subsistence farmers and families earn an average monthly income of $7.
"People in Hambantota have exhausted all their coping mechanisms and we will soon see a major migration from the area if the monsoons don't return," said Dyer.
The government has not made an official appeal for aid, but the Foreign Ministry has briefed envoys in Sri Lanka and several embassies are sending teams to study the situation.
Relief officials were not able to give a new estimate for the cost of the relief but Dyer said World Vision would try to raise about $2.8 million for its share of the effort.
Other parts of the country have also been hit by failed monsoon rains, though not as severely as the southeast.
Power cuts are imposed throughout the country every day as the government tries to conserve hydro-electricity until the rains return.
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