By Mahil Dole –

As floodwaters rise and families remain stranded across multiple districts, Sri Lanka faces a life-or-death challenge that goes beyond rainfall, rescue boats or relief supplies. The country’s most urgent necessity at this moment is connectivity — the ability to link victims, responders, authorities and volunteers into one functioning rescue network. Without it, even the best resources are misdirected, delayed or rendered useless.

With it, lives can be saved within minutes.

Victims Are Cut Off — and Running Out of Options

Across towns and villages, families are trapped on upper floors, stranded on rooftops or isolated by rising water. Many have no electricity, no phone signal and no way of alerting the outside world.

For them, the most painful uncertainty is not the floodwater — it is not knowing whether help is coming.

Data Breakdown Slows the Entire Rescue Chain

Disaster management teams, health workers, police, the Tri-forces and emergency authorities depend on real-time information to identify the worst-affected pockets.

But power failures, damaged phone towers, inaccessible roads and overwhelmed hotlines mean that critical data is not flowing fast enough.

When the information chain breaks:

* Rescue boats take longer routes

* Some families are missed altogether

* Resources get duplicated in one area and absent in another

* Medical emergencies go unnoticed until too late

This is the unseen crisis beneath the visible disaster.

Volunteers Are Ready — But Not Connected

Civil volunteers, youth groups, religious institutions and neighbourhood teams have mobilised across the country.

But without coordination, their efforts remain scattered and sometimes unsafe.

A coordinated volunteer network can multiply the state’s capacity.

An uncoordinated one risks chaos.

Local Authorities Hold the Ground Truth — But Need Support

Pradeshiya Sabhas, municipal councils and provincial officers know:

* Which families are stranded

* Which roads are blocked

* Which bridges are washed away

* Which neighbourhoods need medicine, water or evacuation

However, many lack power, communication tools and organised channels to feed this information into national systems.

They are the nerve centres of the crisis, and they must be re-enabled immediately.

Power and Roads: The Two Life-Saving Priorities

Electricity restoration is essential not only for households but for:

* Communication towers

* Hospitals and clinics

* Shelters and safe centres

* Water purification and pumping

Emergency service coordination

Likewise, clearing key access roads determines how quickly boats, ambulances, supplies and recovery teams can reach cut-off communities.

Every hour these two remain disrupted, the humanitarian risk deepens.

What Sri Lanka Needs Now: A Unified Connectivity Grid

To prevent further tragedy, Sri Lanka must urgently establish a Unified Crisis Connectivity Network, bringing together:

* Disaster Management Centre

* Police and Tri-forces

* CEB, Water Board and Telecom providers

* Local government authorities

* Volunteer coordinators

* District and Divisional secretariats

This single grid must serve as the backbone for:

* Mapping stranded families

* Prioritising rescues

* Routing volunteers

* Distributing relief

* Coordinating medical responses

Monitoring vulnerable population statistics

• Every call for help must be heard.

• Every rescue must be tracked.

• Every resource must reach the right location.

Reaching Out For Help — and a Call to Action

Sri Lanka cannot afford for victims to remain invisible.

Every missing link in the communication chain represents a person waiting in fear, a child stranded without food, or an elder with no medication.

The country has the manpower, the goodwill and the capacity.

What is missing — and urgently needed — is connectivity.

Reconnecting our people is not just a technical task.

It is the difference between life and loss.

Sri Lanka now stands at that strategic crossroads.

*Mahil Dole, SSP (Retired), is the former Head of the Counter-Terrorism Division of the State Intelligence Service of Sri Lanka, and has served as Head of the Sri Lankan Delegation at three BIMSTEC Security Conferences. With over 40 years of experience in policing and intelligence, he writes on regional security, interfaith relations, and geopolitical strategy.