Sri Lanka says floods displace 175,000

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COLOMBO (Reuters) - Flash flooding in east and central Sri Lanka has forced 175,000 people from their homes, with many seeking refuge in makeshift welfare centers in schools and temples, officials said on Monday.

Heavy rains on Sunday and Monday caused a reservoir to burst its banks in the eastern district of Batticaloa, where more than 40,000 families comprising around 150,000 people were displaced, said Ramya Siriwansa, deputy director of emergency operations at the National Disaster Management Centre.

The central district of Polonnaruwa was second-worst hit, with around 6,500 people displaced, with the balance affected in the northern districts of Jaffna and Trincomalee and the central district of Matale.

The inundation comes a week after 20,000 people were flooded out of their homes mainly in the eastern district of Ampara, when a depression over the Bay of Bengal intensified monsoon rains. Most of those people have since returned home.

"The flooding is due to heavy rains. A water tank has broken its banks in Batticaloa, so that is why most people have been affected," Siriwansa told Reuters. "There are 175,025 people displaced."

"Many are with friends and relatives, others are in camps and sheltering in schools and temples."

Flooding and displacement are common in Sri Lanka, where a southern monsoon batters the island between May and September, and a northeastern monsoon runs from December to February.

Batticaloa, on the eastern seaboard, was badly battered by the 2004 tsunami. The third anniversary of a disaster that left 35,000 people dead and missing in Sri Lanka alone is just two days away.

Flooding and drought are cyclical in Sri Lanka.

In January, around 60,000 people were displaced by flooding, with the southeastern district of Hambantota badly hit.

More than a dozen people were killed by landslides in the central hills at the time, hundreds of houses were damaged and thousands of people were stranded in makeshift welfare centers.

(Reporting by Simon Gardner; editing by Roger Crabb)