Adverse weather claims 15 lives in Sri Lanka

Weather officials said that a cyclonic storm which is expected to affect the Eastern Province would move over to the southern state of Tamil Nadu later on Saturday.

Colombo: Adverse weather from a deep depression over the southwest Bay of Bengal has claimed the lives of fifteen people in Sri Lanka, according to the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) on Saturday.

The DMC said over 4,50,000 people have been hit by floods, strong winds and earth-slips in the country.

Fifteen people have died so far, it said. The greatest number of 10 deaths have been recorded from the Eastern Province.

The bad weather was caused by the deep depression over the southwest Bay of Bengal.

A cyclonic storm which is expected to affect the Eastern Province would move over to the southern state of Tamil Nadu later on Saturday, the weather officials said.

This would improve the bad weather situation in the country. However, the north, north central and eastern Trincomalee districts are expected to experience heavy rain falls over 100 mm, the Meteorological Department said.

Heavy winds of over 60 km per hour are also expected to hit parts of the island.

Meanwhile, the police said they arrested a school principal and a teacher over the deaths of six students due to flood waters in the eastern town of Sammanthurai while travelling on a tractor.

The principal had asked the students to travel by tractor due to a lack of buses.