Tag: Cyclone Ditwah

When Cyclone Ditwah swept across Sri Lanka in recent days, it did not discriminate by district or topography. Coastal towns flooded, inland river basins overflowed and the central highlands saw landslides carve through settlements that had long occupied unstable terrain. While the cyclone was a natural event, the scale of devastation was not inevitable. It was shaped – amplified even – by architecture, planning and the long-standing relationship between built form and landscape.