Colombo – IOM, working with Australia's Agency for International Development (AusAID) and local authorities, will hand over on Thursday (11/4) 3.2 kilometres of pipeline to Sri Lanka’s Water Supply and Drainage Board. The pipe will bring safe drinking water to hundreds of families who were relocated following landslides in Central Province in 2007.

The landslides affected nearly 4,000 families and destroyed several hundred homes, forcing hundreds of families to move to Johnsland Estate, a former tea plantation.

The LKR 15 million (USD 118,000) pipeline project is part of a three-year IOM community development programme in Sri Lanka’s Northern and Central Provinces. The programme focuses on improvements to community infrastructure that will improve transportation, access to primary resources, services and markets.

The progamme also has an in-built disaster preparedness component. Sri Lanka’s National Building Research Organisation is advising communities on how and where to build safely.

“This project fills an urgent humanitarian need by providing essential infrastructure for people who have been needy for too long”, said Mr. R T P Sumanasekara, Divisional Secretary, speaking on behalf of the Sri Lankan government.

“The landslides were a tragedy for those affected, but were somewhat overshadowed by Sri Lanka’s other disasters, including the conflict and the tsunami. As with much of our work in Sri Lanka, we realized that it was important to include a disaster risk reduction component to help prevent future displacement due to natural disasters,” said IOM Sri Lanka Chief of Mission Richard Danziger.

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For more information please contact: Patrick Charignon, IOM Sri Lanka, Email: pcharignon@iom.int