Sri Lankans sift mud to unearth victims four days after deadly cyclone

By Uditha Jayasinghe

MAWATHURA, Sri Lanka, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Villagers in Sri Lanka used spades on Wednesday to clear away mud as they searched for the bodies of relatives and friends days after 13 homes were flattened by a landslide in the dead of night caused by a cyclone that killed 474 people.

Cyclone Ditwah barrelled through the Indian Ocean island nation last week, setting off the landslide in the central region of Mawathura that left only a broken window pane, walls of ruined homes, and a twisted red sari buried in the mud. 

"We managed to dig out my uncle, his wife, and his mother-in-law last night," Neil Jayasinghe, who runs a bakery in a nearby town, told Reuters.

"We just wrapped them in a sheet and buried them nearby. There wasn't even a coffin."

HUNDREDS KILLED ACROSS SOUTH, SOUTHEAST ASIA

The cyclone was among deadly storms that recently swept across South and Southeast Asia to devastate large swathes of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, killing hundreds. 

More than 350 people are still missing in Sri Lanka after the cyclone, which brought the worst flooding in a decade and affected 1.2 million, the government says.

Shantha Kumara, 49, was shifting bricks by hand, looking for bodies.

"We made it to a temple nearby and returned at dawn, but by that time nothing was left," he said, describing his escape with his wife and three children when homes around his own crumbled. 

SHOPS ENGULFED IN MUD

Clearing slush from his electrical repair shop in the town of Gampola, 71-year-old B.S. Wickramasinghe sifted through mud-caked radios assisted by his son, while sludge covered a pile of television sets nearby.  

"When the owners come and ask me for their TVs, I am just going to point to this, because there is no way I can replace them," he said, estimating his losses at about 7 million rupees ($23,000).

Gampola lies in Kandy, the region hardest hit by the cyclone, with 118 deaths, authorities have said. 

Officials and volunteers at its government offices were coordinating efforts to provide cooked food, water, clothes, and other essentials to 8,000 people in 27 regional relief centres.

Regional official Chinthani Herath said authorities would have to decide in the long run whether to shift hamlets to safer areas. 

"We will have to look at the location of these villages with the support of other government agencies," Herath added.

($1=308.6500 Sri Lankan rupees)

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe; Writing by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)