COLOMBO: Sri Lankan rescuers said on Thursday they had recovered four drowned children who died in a flash flood, and four other people were missing, after torrential rains from a powerful but slow-moving storm now heading towards India.
More than 250,000 people in Sri Lanka have been forced to flee after their homes were flooded.
Indian weather officials said there was a “possibility” that the deep depression over the southwestern Bay of Bengal could develop into a cyclonic storm.
Cyclones (the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwest Pacific) are a common and deadly threat in the region.
After skirting the coast of Sri Lanka, it was now moving north towards the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
The India Meteorological Department said it was expected to hit the southern coast of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on Saturday morning as a “deep depression” with winds “gusting up to 70 kilometers per hour (43 mph).”
Sri Lanka's Disaster Management Center said some 276,000 people were seeking temporary shelter in public buildings after their homes were flooded.
The government has asked the army to help in relief operations.
The disaster center said search teams were still searching for two missing children and two men, who were also swept away by flash floods while on a tractor and trailer.
Deadly rain-related floods and landslides are common across South Asia, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and severity.
