Death Toll Increases to Shocking 300

State Minister of Public Enterprise Development Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene said, as there is no trace of 95 persons who have gone missing , they are presumed  dead.  Hence, the  total death toll from last week’s disaster is around 300. He revealed this while addressing the SLFP weekly media briefing at party headquarters in Colombo . He has this to say  ‘’The whole area was flooded within 20 minutes and we were helpless. I can’t even imagine how the others faced the situation. We were all stranded for hours . I experienced the floods in 1969 and 2003 but the worst was this year’s.”The government placed the number of affected people at 629,695 from to 163,740 families with 1,540 houses destroyed and 7,714 others damaged. More than 72,105 people from 18, 707 families are still at 355 safe locations. So far the government had spent Rs. 126 million to look after the affected people.   Further, the government would give Rs. 100,000 each to families whose members had perished in disasters’’.