Impact of the Tsunami

The final death toll has been estimated at around 36,000. Initial estimates of those displaced placed the number around 800,000. By mid-2005 this number had come down to around 516,000 as some of the misplaced found alternative sources of accommodation with friends and relatives. Damage to buildings and physical infrastructure was massive. Tens of thousands of houses were damaged or destroyed, many hotels were severely damaged, and six hotels were completely washed away. More than 240 schools were destroyed or sustained serious damage. Several hospitals, telecommunication networks, and the coastal railway network were also damaged.

Box 1: Immediate Impact [ PDF 63KB | 1 page ]

The geographic impact of the tsunami was uneven. Much of the coastal belt of the Northern, Eastern and Southern Provinces and some parts of the Western Province were severely damaged. The Eastern Province was particularly hard hit accounting for nearly half of total deaths and displaced persons as well as numbers of houses damaged (Table 1 [ PDF 63.1KB | 1 page ]). The severity of the tsunami disaster in the Northern and Eastern Provinces compounded problems arising from two decades of conflict between the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The majority of an estimated 360,000 conflict-related internally displaced people lived in these two provinces. From the very early stages, there were concerns about how assistance could be channelled to LTTE-controlled areas. However, basic relief supplies did manage to get through to affected people during the early phases of the relief effort.

The preliminary assessment of damages completed by end-January 2005 through a joint effort of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), and the World Bank (WB) estimated that Sri Lanka had suffered asset damages of around US$1 billion (4.5 per cent of GDP), and estimated that the medium-term financing needs (including immediate relief) would be around US$1.5–1.6 billion (7.5 per cent of GDP). The largest financing needs were in the housing sector.³ The destruction of private assets was substantial (US$700 million), in addition to public infrastructure and other assets. Loss of current output in the fisheries and tourism sectors—which were severely affected—was estimated at US$200 million and US$130 million, respectively. Key industrial, agricultural, and metropolitan centres were relatively unaffected and the damage to capital assets was primarily to the tourism and fisheries sectors, each of which contributes only around 1.5–2 per cent of GDP.

Table 2: Estimates of Losses and Needs Assessment on Reconstruction and Rebuilding (US$ million) [ PDF 76.9KB | 1 page ]

These aggregate figures for financing needs were quite close to the government’s own estimate of US$1.8 billion presented in February 2005, though there were some important differences at the sector level damage estimates (GOSL, 2005d). Subsequently, the GOSL firmed up the country’s total investment needs to be US$2.2 billion (GOSL 2005c).⁴ Some of the differences between these estimates reflected the government’s more ambitious longer-term plans while the donor assessment was largely geared to restoring the pre-tsunami situation. In line with the regional variation in the extent of damages incurred, the largest financing needs were identified in the East (45 per cent), followed by the South (26 per cent), North (19 per cent), and West (10 per cent).

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