Southend woman shelters people at Sri Lankan home

A Sri Lankan woman living in the UK has joined the effort to provide food, shelter and supplies to the desperate people affected by extreme weather.

After a cyclone hit Sri Lanka just over a week ago, the subsequent floods and landslides have killed more than 460 people.

Irie Perera was visiting Colombo for a family wedding but says she has since sheltered about 25 people at her home in Gampola in the central province.

The 61-year-old, who lives in Southend-on-Sea, said her fellow Sri Lankans were "really, really suffering" without water, food, clothes and medicines.

"People have lost their houses, their livelihood, and everything, beds, mattresses, computers, everything's covered in three feet of mud," said Ms Perera.

"Initially, it was floods. The floods have come and gone, but the hills are all soaked with water. So, now there are threats of landslides and people have to leave their homes.

"They've lived there for generations.

"Their families, they farm there, they have got their livelihoods there. They've left all these things and [gone to] get some shelter."

Speaking to presenter Akylah Rodriguez on BBC Essex, Ms Perera described receiving a knock at about midnight at her home - which she has converted into a hotel - when the cyclone hit.

"We gave them tea, coffee and they were so desperate because they just ran off when the water came."

To add to the problems, she said a lot of the locals were tea plantation workers and are unable to work.

"They don't get paid and they have no money to buy stuff. So, we were thinking of delivering a two-week pack for them until hopefully things will settle down."

She said cyclones pass by the island often, but the scale of things this time around was a surprise.

"It was totally unexpected. I have lived in that town all my life and for the last 50-60 years we have never seen flooding like this before. This is completely new."

She recalled the severe flooding in 1947, when the country was a more rural landscape with a smaller population

"Now, all those places are built up and the town has expanded, but then this is the result of that. When you build on preserve land, preservation land, this is another consequence," she added.

The Sri Lankan government has issued an appeal for international aid and urged expats abroad to donate money to support affected communities.

Ms Perera says she is part of a charity called Hela Sarana, which is providing emergency supplies.

She said the group delivered 50 packs of dry rations to a village one morning last week, and were hoping to deliver another 50 packs in the following two days.

Ms Perera hopes to return to the UK before Christmas.

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