COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka was battered by heavy rainfalls and powerful storms as Cyclone Ditwah made landfall early Friday on the country’s eastern coast, killing dozens and shutting down much of the island.
By late evening, as the cyclone churned northwest toward India, the death toll from floods and landslides in its wake reached at least 69. Officials warned that the actual toll, still being tallied, could be much higher.
Entire towns, including several heritage sites, were underwater. Eyewitnesses videos showed floodwaters reaching as high up as second-story buildings and partially sweeping away bridges. Rail services were suspended, some major highways have been blocked, and telecom and power outages were reported in large parts of the country.
The main international airport serving the capital, Colombo, said that over a dozen flights had been diverted to other airports in the country, or to nearby India, since late Thursday.
Government offices remained shut, and school holidays were extended by a week.
“This is the most widespread rainfall in the last decade, covering the entire island,” A. Gunasekara, the director-general of Sri Lanka’s irrigation department, said in an interview.
By late Friday, disaster relief authorities said the floods and heavy rainfall had affected over 200,000 people, damaging their homes or flooding their fields and crops. The country’s meteorological department predicted the cyclone to pass the island by Saturday evening, although rains will only ease after the weekend.
The destruction comes as Sri Lanka, home to over 23 million people, has been finding its footing again, three years after an economic collapse ushered in sweeping political change.
The majority of the recorded deaths so far have occurred over the past two days, as storms over the Bay of Bengal intensified with the cyclone’s approach.
The military deployed helicopters in several areas to try to reach those stranded by rising waters. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake led an emergency meeting of district officials Friday, and Harini Amarasuriya, the prime minister, said: “Our biggest effort is to rescue those who are trapped.”
In addition to the 69 killed in total in the country, 34 others have been reported missing, authorities said late Friday. The deadliest effects have been in Badulla, in Sri Lanka’s central hills, where landslides caused by heavy rains have killed at least 30 people since Wednesday.
“Most deaths in the district were due to landslides, people buried under houses,” said L.U. Kumara, director of the disaster management body in Badulla. He added: “We’re moving people to emergency relief centers. Our next problem is food and clean water, but we are coordinating with different government authorities to provide these necessities.”
The cyclone is Sri Lanka’s deadliest natural disaster since 2017, when flooding and landslides killed more than 200 people and displaced hundreds of thousands of others.
Officials have warned that Colombo could face some of the worst floods in years. The city lies in the Kelani River Basin, which the irrigation department has declared at high risk. The department has warned residents in areas close to the river to take precautionary measures.
A forecast map issued early Friday by the country’s department of meteorology showed almost the entire island marked as red, which meant that heavy rainfall was expected. Strong winds of about 40-50 mph were also expected over most of the island, the department said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.