Mennonite Central Committee

Travel made difficult by heavy rains

January 1, 2005
Mary Oxley

This is from a Jan. 1 update from MCC worker Mary Oxley, whose husband Mark traveled with a medical team to devastated areas in the Ampara district along Sri Lanka's east coast.

Mark arrived back safely at 8 a.m. Saturday morning, having traveled back overnight from the East coast. It was a last minute decision to travel back through the night because of the deteriorating weather conditions. The monsoon season has begun with a vengeance, and the already badly damaged roads were quickly becoming flooded after a day of heavy, persistent rain. The driving conditions in a two-wheel-drive van were difficult with the water up to 12 to 18 inches deep in places. The main access for this particular coastal area is via a long bridge. This had already been badly damaged by the waves and with the floodwaters just within a few inches of the bridge, there were real concerns that the bridge wouldn't be able to hold out for much longer. If this bridge does become impassable, access to this area of the East coast is going to be very severely restricted, hampering further relief operations. Mark and the medical teams would have potentially become stranded had they not left when they did.

Tomorrow we are meeting with Chandran to regroup and plan what our next steps should be. Mark has a prayer meeting with the two teams he traveled with on Monday. They will maintain contact with the Methodist pastor in Thirakovil with whom they worked closely with this past couple of days.