Ms Nawaz Nashra recalls grabbing her three-year-old daughter, wrapping her in a bedsheet and running out of their home in central Sri Lanka as a landslide struck, triggered by a deadly cyclone that killed 410 people in the worst floods in a decade. Ms Nashra and her pregnant sister, who lived with her, spent the next 20 minutes scrambling down the hillside from Alawathugoda village on the night of Nov 28, sometimes knee-deep in mud, until they reached a mosque at a lower altitude, where they spent the night. “It was pitch dark… We could only hear a sound like thunder,” she told Reuters. “The house next to ours collapsed as we watched. There was no time to warn anyone.” About 10 houses in the neighbourhood were swept away by Cyclone Ditwah and at least 25 people are feared dead, residents said on Dec 2, when they returned with long poles to dig through the mud and search for bodies.

Full report : Sri Lanka grapples with trauma, loss after deadly cyclone that killed hundreds.