By Charles Haviland BBC News, Colombo

Displaced numbers down as flood waters recede but the death toll has gone up to 38

The official number listed as displaced has dropped by one-third in 24 hours, down from 340,000 to 204,000.

However the number of known fatalities has continued to rise slowly and 38 people are said to have been killed.

The air in the town of Batticaloa is still damp, and early this morning rain started coming down again heavily.

But the earlier dry weather brought water levels down.

Food rations

Many homes that were under a foot of water are now drying out, and a lot of people have left the makeshift camps or the friends and family they were staying with.

“It is good to be home,” a Muslim man queuing for food rations, supplied by the World Food Programme, told the BBC.

Half of the flood-related fatalities have come from this district, including a 10-year-old boy swept away in a swollen lagoon, and families are grieving.

People are going home but many have lost income and crops.

The UN is launching an emergency appeal for donors to support priority needs like food, clean water and mosquito nets.

It says that in the longer term more support will be needed to replant flooded fields and boost lost livestock.