Flooding, landslides in Sri Lanka kill as many as 141

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Flash floods and landslides killed 141 people in south-central Sri Lanka this weekend, state media reported Monday. Meteorology officials warned more rain was on its way.

About 150,000 people have fled their homes, officials said. They are being housed in temples, schools and public buildings.

The state-run Daily News, quoting state officials, put the death toll at 141.

Local officials, reached by the telephone, said 69 bodies had been recovered, while 47 others were believed buried in a landslide that wiped out an entire village.

The numbers could not immediately be reconciled.

The flash floods hit the area late Saturday, when most residents had returned to their homes after celebrating a festival marking the birth of Buddha.

"Fallen trees and blocked roads are making it extremely difficult to reach remote areas," said Malini Premaratne, the chief administrator of Ratnapura district, the worst affected area, 60 miles southeast of the capital, Colombo.

Ratnapura district, famed for its gem mines, is home to 1 million people.

Sri Lanka's neighbor India, responding to a plea for help, said it had dispatched a naval patrol craft with relief supplies and medical teams.

Though water was receding from some areas, the Department of Meteorology warned of more rain on Monday.

"There will be occasional showers accompanied by fairly strong winds," the department said in a statement.

The government appointed a four-member Disaster Management Ministerial Committee, allocated $62,500 for immediate relief and announced it will pay $156) for funeral expenses for each of the dead.

Natural disasters of this magnitude are rare in Sri Lanka, a small tropical island country with 18.6 million people off India's southern coast.

On May 13, a cyclone hit the country, blowing roofs off houses, uprooting trees and leaving some streets in the capital under 3 feet of water. Since then it has been raining heavily in central and southern parts of the country, caused by a tropical depression in the Bay of Bengal.

Sri Lanka usually experiences monsoon rains between late May and mid-September.