Attachments
Introduction
Cyclone Ditwah struck on 28 November 2025, triggering heavy rainfall, flooding, and landslides across Kegalle District. Hilly areas like Aranayake, experienced significant landslide activity and flash flooding, resulting in widespread damage to housing, infrastructure, and livelihoods. The Joint Rapid Needs Assessment (Phase II) ranked Kegalle among the highest-priority affected districts, identifying it as likely to require prolonged reliance on safety centres due to continued exposure to landslide risks.1 UNICEF reported that approximately 50–75% of water supply systems were disrupted in affected districts, including Kegalle.2 In the weeks following the event, humanitarian reporting indicated a transition from large-scale collective sheltering to more dispersed and protracted displacement patterns, with damaged access roads, unstable slopes, and ongoing hazard exposure constraining safe returns.3 Despite this evolving context, official displacement figures have shown limited variation between mid-February and early April, consistently reporting approximately 36,000 individuals displaced outside of camps, while the number of safety centres reduced only marginally (from 7 to 6).4 5 This relative stasis may indicate limitations in data updating or gaps in tracking returns and secondary displacement, and points to a lack of granular, location-specific information. For instance, as of 7 april 2026, Kegalle had only four active displacement sites sheltering approximately 200 individuals, including one safety centre, one planned camp, one hybrid centre that included tented shelters and cemented shelters, and one informal site. Given this, a DS-level analysis is critical. District-level aggregates obscure significant intra-district variation in impact and recovery trajectories. A disaggregated assessment is therefore required to accurately estimate displaced populations and returnees, identify priority needs across communities, and understand barriers to return at the DS division level.