COLOMBO: On Wednesday ( Nov 27 ), heavy rains slammed southern India, with coastal areas in the area anticipating a potential cyclonic storm as rescue teams in neighboring Sri Lanka searched for eight people who had been missing from floods.
Storms are a frequent and deadly threat in the area, akin to hurricanes in the North Atlantic or thunderstorms in the northern Pacific.
Government rescue team were searching for six children and two men who had been swept aside by flash floods on vehicle and trailer in northeast Sri Lanka, which has experienced heavy rain since Tuesday.
One woman was killed when she was buried in a mudslide, according to Sri Lanka’s disaster management center on Wednesday.
A deep depression over the southwest of the Bay of Bengal is expected to “intensify into a cyclonic storm” overnight, according to Indian weather officials.
However, it is expected to be moving slowly and will be close to India’s east coast, and forecasters predict that by the time it reaches that country, storm winds will have dissipated.
Wednesday morning, the Indian Meteorological Department issued a warning for “very heavy” rainfall in some areas of Tamil Nadu’s southern state.
While Tamil Nadu’s chief minister M. K. Stalin warned people to be” safe while going out,” fishermen were instructed to “return to coasts immediately.”
South Asia is awash with deadly rain-related floods and landslides, but experts claim that their frequency and severity are getting worse.