By Shanika Somatilake –

Shanika Somatilake

Every major disaster produces two floods. One is physical. The other is informational. After Cyclone Ditwah, Sri Lanka has experienced both.

As rivers rose and reservoirs entered high inflow operations, a familiar pattern re-emerged. Opposition-driven media ecosystems began circulating claims that spill gates were opened without warning that dams had breached, that engineers should’ve predicted spill timings to the minute, and in the most extreme cases, that reservoirs generated ten -metre tsunamis. These narratives spread faster than verified data and reached communities already under stress.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. A few years ago, the same media ecosystem claimed that a divine serpent had emerged, parting the Kelani river. The snake itself was planted. No unusual river behaviour took place. The entire episode was manufactured by a charlatan and amplified without scrutiny. The mechanism, however, is the same one at work today. Fabrication is dressed up as explanation because myth is easier to sell than hydrology. In the past, it was a supernatural snake. Today, it’s a reservoir “tsunami”. The actors have changed props, not methods. The Kelani river has been replaced by Kotmale dam, but fear remains the product.

The problem isn’t criticism. Scrutiny of state systems is necessary in a democracy. The problem is the absence of technical literacy in the criticism itself.

Reservoirs don’t create tsunamis. Spillways release water horizontally into river systems. Tsunamis require massive vertical displacement of water usually from seismic events. A dam breach isn’t subtle. It produces immediate catastrophic downstream signals that cannot be hidden. None of those signals occurred during Ditwah.

At Kotmale, operators have stated that spill gates were opened step by step after issuing a ten minute siren warning. That aligns with standard reservoir operating procedures. Gates are adjusted incrementally to manage heavy inflow and avoid downstream hydraulic shock. The siren is a local operational alert, not a basin-wide evacuation signal to towns far downstream. Ditwah brought extreme rainfall that no existing pre-release strategy can neutralize.

The expectation that engineers should calculate exact hours and minutes of spill during a cyclone misunderstands hydrology. Cyclone inflow is stochastic. Rainfall arrives in pulses, tributaries surge unpredictably, and slope failures alter flow paths. Even with advanced radar and telemetry, minute-level certainty doesn’t exist under these conditions.

Addressing misinformation isn’t evading accountability. It’s a prerequisite for meaningful accountability. When public debate is dominated by false premises, serious questions about system design, institutional coordination and long-term resilience never get asked.

The real failure exposed by Cyclone Ditwah was structural. Sri Lanka’s disaster governance remains fragmented where meteorology, landslide monitoring, reservoir operations and flood response operate in silos without a unified real-time scientific command. Into that gap, fear narratives inevitably rush in.

Sri Lanka doesn’t need myths, monsters or cinematic villains. It needs integrated data, transparent communication and a disaster management operating system engineered for a climate that no longer behaves like the past. Until science speaks faster and clearer than fear, the second deluge will keep returning.