Opinion

Disasters do not destroy nations; the refusal to change does

Published

2 months ago

2025/12/25

Floods caused by Cyclone Ditwah

Sri Lanka has endured both kinds of catastrophe that a nation can face, those caused by nature and those created by human hands. A thirty-year civil war tore apart the social fabric, deepening mistrust between communities and leaving lasting psychological wounds, particularly among those who lived through displacement, loss, and fear. The 2004 tsunami, by contrast, arrived without warning, erasing entire coastal communities within minutes and reminding us of our vulnerability to forces beyond human control.

These two disasters posed the same question in different forms: did we learn, and did we change? After the war ended, did we invest seriously in repairing relationships between Sinhalese and Tamil communities, or did we equate peace with silence and infrastructure alone? Were collective efforts made to heal trauma and restore dignity, or were psychological wounds left to be carried privately, generation after generation? After the tsunami, did we fundamentally rethink how and where we build, how we plan settlements, and how we prepare for future risks, or did we rebuild quickly, gratefully, and then forget?

Years later, as Sri Lanka confronts economic collapse and climate-driven disasters, the uncomfortable truth emerges. we survived these catastrophes, but we did not allow them to transform us. Survival became the goal; change was postponed.

History offers rare moments when societies stand at a crossroads, able either to restore what was lost or to reimagine what could be built on stronger foundations. One such moment occurred in Lisbon in 1755. On 1 November 1755, Lisbon-one of the most prosperous cities in the world, was almost completely erased. A massive earthquake, estimated between magnitude 8.5 and 9.0, was followed by a tsunami and raging fires. Churches collapsed during Mass, tens of thousands died, and the royal court was left stunned. Clergy quickly declared the catastrophe a punishment from God, urging repentance rather than reconstruction.

One man refused to accept paralysis as destiny. Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, later known as the Marquês de Pombal, responded with cold clarity. His famous instruction, “Bury the dead and feed the living,” was not heartless; it was revolutionary. While others searched for divine meaning, Pombal focused on human responsibility. Relief efforts were organised immediately, disease was prevented, and plans for rebuilding began almost at once.

Pombal did not seek to restore medieval Lisbon. He saw its narrow streets and crumbling buildings as symbols of an outdated order. Under his leadership, Lisbon was rebuilt with wide avenues, rational urban planning, and some of the world’s earliest earthquake-resistant architecture. Moreover, his vision extended far beyond stone and mortar. He reformed trade, reduced dependence on colonial wealth, encouraged local industries, modernised education, and challenged the long-standing dominance of aristocracy and the Church. Lisbon became a living expression of Enlightenment values, reason, science, and progress.

Back in Sri Lanka, this failure is no longer a matter of opinion. it is documented evidence. An initial assessment by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) following Cyclone Ditwah revealed that more than half of those affected by flooding were already living in households facing multiple vulnerabilities before the cyclone struck, including unstable incomes, high debt, and limited capacity to cope with disasters (UNDP, 2025). The disaster did not create poverty; it magnified it. Physical damage was only the visible layer. Beneath it lay deep social and economic fragility, ensuring that for many communities, recovery would be slow, uneven, and uncertain.

The world today offers Sri Lanka another lesson Lisbon understood centuries ago: risk is systemic, and resilience cannot be improvised, it must be planned. Modern climate science shows that weather systems are deeply interconnected; rising ocean temperatures, changing wind patterns, and global emissions influence extreme weather far beyond their points of origin. Floods, landslides, and cyclones affecting Sri Lanka are no longer isolated events, but part of a broader climatic shift. Rebuilding without adapting construction methods, land-use planning, and infrastructure to these realities is not resilience, it is denial. In this context, resilience also depends on Sri Lanka’s willingness to learn from other countries, adopt proven technologies, and collaborate across borders, recognising that effective solutions to global risks cannot be developed in isolation.

A deeper problem is how we respond to disasters: we often explain destruction without seriously asking why it happened or how it could have been prevented. Time and again, devastation is framed through religion, fate, karma, or divine will. While faith can bring comfort in moments of loss, it cannot replace responsibility, foresight, or reform. After major disasters, public attention often focuses on stories of isolated religious statues or buildings that remain undamaged, interpreted as signs of protection or blessing, while far less attention is paid to understanding environmental exposure, construction quality, and settlement planning, the factors that determine survival. Similarly, when a single house survives a landslide, it is often described as a miracle rather than an opportunity to study soil conditions, building practices, and land-use decisions. While such interpretations may provide emotional reassurance, they risk obscuring the scientific understanding needed to reduce future loss.

The lesson from Lisbon is clear: rebuilding a nation requires the courage to question tradition, the discipline to act rationally, and leadership willing to choose long-term progress over short-term comfort. Until Sri Lanka learns to rebuild not only roads and buildings, but relationships, institutions, and ways of thinking, we will remain a country trapped in recovery, never truly reborn.

by Darshika Thejani Bulathwatta
Psychologist and Researcher

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Opinion

Education needed about people not feeding wildlife

Published

3 hours ago

2026/02/15

Thilina Walpola

Being wildlife enthusiasts and bird watchers we took a river “safari” during a recent family trip to Bentota. We were dismayed to see that it seems to be the standard practice to feed the monkeys, I think they were the purple faced langurs, that were encountered on the river banks. Each boat that passed by stopped with boxed fruit, coconut and other odds and ends to feed them.

We managed to stop our guy from doing so but faced derision and laughter that we shouldn’t be afraid of monkeys. We tried to explain to him that this is a plague affecting Sri Lanka; elephants being fed on road sides and even in national parks, monkeys being fed from hotel balconies and apparently during river boat rides, birds being fed on hotel terraces etc.

This was met with further mockery and amused dismissal. An effort to make them understand that this was their livelihood that they were destroying it in this manner sailed over their heads. They even have a picture of a baby crocodile on the shoulders of a tourist on their billboard.

We need to consider the following:

Educate such tour operators about the importance of not interfering with the environment and the behaviour of wild animals.

Include education and training in the hotel school, and in schools in tourist resort towns about their duty and responsibility to the environment and the ecosystem on which we all depend.

If it is not already the case such operators should have licenses that should be revoked and fined if found to be engaging in such destructive acts.

Tamara Nanayakkara

Opinion

Capt. Dinham Suhood flies West

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/13

Thilina Walpola

A few days ago, we heard the sad news of the passing on of Capt. Dinham Suhood. Born in 1929, he was the last surviving Air Ceylon Captain from the ‘old guard’.

He studied at St Joseph’s College, Colombo 10. He had his flying training in 1949 in Sydney, Australia and then joined Air Ceylon in late 1957. There he flew the DC3 (Dakota), HS748 (Avro), Nord 262 and the HS 121 (Trident).

I remember how he lent his large collection of ‘Airfix’ plastic aircraft models built to scale at S. Thomas’ College, exhibitions. That really inspired us schoolboys.

In 1971 he flew for a Singaporean Millionaire, a BAC One-Eleven and then later joined Air Siam where he flew Boeing B707 and the B747 before retiring and migrating to Australia in 1975.

Some of my captains had flown with him as First Officers. He was reputed to have been a true professional and always helpful to his colleagues.

He was an accomplished pianist and good dancer.

He passed on a few days short of his 97th birthday, after a brief illness.

May his soul rest in peace!

To fly west my friend is a test we must all take for a final check

Capt. Gihan A Fernando

RCyAF/ SLAF, Air Ceylon, Air Lanka, Singapore Airlines, SriLankan Airlines

Opinion

Global warming here to stay

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/13

Thilina Walpola

The cause of global warming, they claim, is due to ever increasing levels of CO2. This is a by-product of burning fossil fuels like oil and gas, and of course coal. Environmentalists and other ‘green’ activists are worried about rising world atmospheric levels of CO2. Now they want to stop the whole world from burning fossil fuels, especially people who use cars powered by petrol and diesel oil, because burning petrol and oil are a major source of CO2 pollution. They are bringing forward the fateful day when oil and gas are scarce and can no longer be found and we have no choice but to travel by electricity-driven cars – or go by foot. They say we must save energy now, by walking and save the planet’s atmosphere.

THE DEMON COAL

But it is coal, above all, that is hated most by the ‘green’ lobby. It is coal that is first on their list for targeting above all the other fossil fuels. The eminently logical reason is that coal is the dirtiest polluter of all. In addition to adding CO2 to the atmosphere, it pollutes the air we breathe with fine particles of ash and poisonous chemicals which also make us ill. And some claim that coal-fired power stations produce more harmful radiation than an atomic reactor.

STOP THE COAL!

Halting the use of coal for generating electricity is a priority for them. It is an action high on the Green party list.

However, no-one talks of what we can use to fill the energy gap left by coal. Some experts publicly claim that unfortunately, energy from wind or solar panels, will not be enough and cannot satisfy our demand for instant power at all times of the day or night at a reasonable price.

THE ALTERNATIVES

It seems to be a taboo to talk about energy from nuclear power, but this is misguided. Going nuclear offers tried and tested alternatives to coal. The West has got generating energy from uranium down to a fine art, but it does involve some potentially dangerous problems, which are overcome by powerful engineering designs which then must be operated safely. But an additional factor when using URANIUM is that it produces long term radioactive waste. Relocating and storage of this waste is expensive and is a big problem.

Russia in November 2020, very kindly offered to help us with this continuous generating problem by offering standard Uranium modules for generating power. They offered to handle all aspects of the fuel cycle and its disposal. In hindsight this would have been an unbelievable bargain. It can be assumed that we could have also used Russian expertise in solving the power distribution flows throughout the grid.

THORIUM

But thankfully we are blessed with a second nuclear choice – that of the mildly radioactive THORIUM, a much cheaper and safer solution to our energy needs.

News last month (January 2026) told us of how China has built a container ship that can run on Thorium for ten years without refuelling. They must have solved the corrosion problem of the main fluoride mixing container walls. China has rare earths and can use AI computers to solve their metallurgical problems – fast!

Nevertheless, Russia can equally offer Sri Lanka Thorium- powered generating stations. Here the benefits are even more obviously evident. Thorium can be a quite cheap source of energy using locally mined material plus, so importantly, the radioactive waste remains dangerous for only a few hundred years, unlike uranium waste.

Because they are relatively small, only the size of a semi-detached house, such thorium generating stations can be located near the point of use, reducing the need for UNSIGHTLY towers and power grid distribution lines.

The design and supply of standard Thorium reactor machines may be more expensive but can be obtained from Russia itself, or China – our friends in our time of need.

Priyantha Hettige