Sunday Times 2
The $4.1b. paradox: Why Sri Lanka’s commendable telecom recovery cannot mask its pre-disaster vulnerabilities
View(s):By Eng Nihal Pradeep Kumar Rathnapala, Former Deputy
Director General-TRCSL
Cyclone Ditwah, which struck Sri Lanka in November 2025, was not merely a climate event. It was a national stress test of institutions, infrastructure, coordination, and governance.
According to the World Bank’s Global Rapid Post-Disaster Damage Estimation (GRADE) Report, published in December 2025, the scale of the disaster was estimated to be around US$4.1 billion in total damage, equivalent to four per cent of the nation’s 2024 GDP. Within this shocking figure, damage to essential infrastructure, including power, water, and transport, accounted for an aggregated US$1.735 billion.
While the country demonstrated courage, collaboration and dedication in responding to the disaster, the cyclone also revealed a critical vulnerability that deserves urgent national attention on the fragility of emergency telecommunications. The widespread collapse of telecommunication systems during and immediately after the cyclone laid bare deep structural weaknesses in emergency telecommunication preparedness. In such a context, gestures like free data, SMS, or call offers may signal goodwill but serve little or no purpose when basic telecommunication services collapse at the height of an emergency.
When disaster strikes, telecommunication failure can mean the difference between chaos and control. International best practice recognises a National Emergency Telecommunication Plan (NETP) as the backbone of crisis communication, ensuring uninterrupted information flow among governments, communities, and public and private entities across every disaster phase from mitigation and preparedness to response and recovery.
Sri Lanka, however, has yet to implement a National Emergency Telecommunication Plan (NETP). The absence of such a coordinated strategy during Ditwah unveiled the gaps in telecommunication and coordination, underscoring the urgent need for a robust NETP to ensure the resilient, ITU-compliant telecommunications infrastructure the nation needs for timely alerts, seamless coordination, and effective disaster management from start to finish.
Legal Framework
Sri Lanka’s disaster governance rests on the Disaster Management Act No. 13 of 2005, enacted in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. While this framework established institutional structures, Cyclone Ditwah demonstrated that disaster risk has evolved faster than the legal framework. When the Act was drafted, mobile broadband, digital public alerts, cloud networks, satellite backup systems, and cyber resilience were not central to disaster response. Today, they are indispensable.
Notably, in Sri Lanka, telecommunication does not have a clearly defined statutory position within the current core disaster governance structure. In a digital era, disaster governance without telecom leadership is a strategic blind spot. This institutional gap has practical consequences when communication systems, now the nervous system of disaster response, fail under stress.
What the ITU NETP expects
from modern states
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations’ specialised agency for ICTs, has developed National Emergency Telecommunication Plan (NETP) Guidelines to help countries ensure that communication systems remain functional before, during, and after disasters.
The ITU NETP treats telecommunications as critical national infrastructure across four disaster stages:
n Mitigation – reducing vulnerabilities in advance
n Preparedness – ensuring systems and roles are ready
n Response – maintaining communication during impact
n Recovery – restoring services and learning lessons
Sri Lanka’s experience during Cyclone Ditwah exposed a critical gap. The nation’s focus remains heavily on recovery, while the earlier stages, especially maintaining resilient communication systems, are overlooked. To truly safeguard lives and limit economic fallout, mitigation, preparedness and response must be given equal weight alongside recovery.
Governance: Fragmentation
without an emergency
telecommunication command centre
In Sri Lanka, disaster response with respect to communications and responsibilities can spread across multiple institutions. While this allows mobilisation, it also creates fragmentation. During Cyclone Ditwah, as per current provisions, no single body had full command over emergency communications, and decisions have been made across parallel structures. This is not a failure of intent but a signal that preparedness needs strengthening.
The NETP guidelines call for a single, clearly mandated authority for emergency telecommunications, supported by predefined roles, standard operating procedures, regular multi-agency drills, and appropriate legal mechanisms. Sri Lanka should develop national and district-level emergency telecommunication SOPs aligned with ITU principles and embed them within routine disaster simulations. Communication failure scenarios must be tested as rigorously as physical rescue operations.
Mitigation: Reducing risk
before it becomes a crisis
Mitigation involves reducing vulnerabilities long before hazards materialise. In the context of telecommunications, the ITU’s National Emergency Telecommunication Plan (NETP) guidelines stress the need to identify critical infrastructure and protect it accordingly.
During Cyclone Ditwah, about 4,000 mobile towers went offline due to power outages or fuel shortages and due to critical fibre backbone failure simultaneously in 11 locations, exposing a lack of dual-path redundancies. This indicates that emergency communication infrastructure is not yet fully treated as critical national infrastructure.
The ITU NETP guidelines require measures such as identification of critical telecom nodes, ensuring mandatory backup power for essential base stations, flood- and landslide-resilient network design, rapidly deployable mobile base stations, integration of satellite and alternative communication technologies, etc.
Resilience is not an add-on. It is the foundation of continuity.
Early warning: From forecasts
to actionable messages
Sri Lanka has access to meteorological data and forecasting capabilities. However, Cyclone Ditwah demonstrated that forecasting does not automatically translate into life-saving action. This reflects a failure of last-mile communication rather than scientific forecasting.
Warnings must be standardised, authoritative, and unambiguous, using pre-approved templates activated automatically based on risk thresholds.
The ITU NETP guidelines emphasise establishing an integrated national public alerting/messaging system built on the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) to ensure that warnings reach every citizen quickly and reliably. A CAP-based system would allow authorities to issue a single, trusted alert that is automatically delivered across all communication channels: mobile and fixed telephones (geo-specific cell broadcasts/SMS), internet platforms, social media and messaging apps, radio and television broadcast overrides, satellite and emergency radio systems, public sirens, digital signage, and connected technologies such as IoT devices and smart homes.
By adopting this unified, standards-based approach, Sri Lanka can eliminate fragmented alerts, strengthen public trust, and ensure that critical warnings are delivered clearly and simultaneously, when seconds truly matter.
Response phase: Communication
as an operational tool
During disasters, communication is not merely informational. It is operational. The NETP framework requires priority access for emergency services, interoperable platforms, and real-time situational awareness.
Priority communication mechanisms, interoperable data platforms, and unified command-level communication protocols should be introduced that activate automatically during declared emergencies.
Ensuring more resilience during the response phase, alternative layers like well-rehearsed independent Amateur Radio Networks, Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) Networks, and PMR/walkie-talkies provide critical lifelines for first responders and affected communities.
Recovery: Learning must be mandatory
Recovery is not the end of the disaster cycle. The NETP guidelines insist on systematic post-disaster reviews and integration of lessons learned into revised plans.
While post-Ditwah reconstruction is underway, communication resilience has not yet been fully embedded into recovery strategies.
Sri Lanka should mandate post-disaster telecommunication audits and ensure that every major disaster strengthens future preparedness.
From reaction to resilience
Cyclone Ditwah was a tragedy. But it was also a warning. As climate risks intensify, Sri Lanka faces a choice: continue responding to disasters as isolated crises or build a resilient, institutionalised system that protects lives and national stability.
Disasters cannot be prevented, but chaos can. Adopting a comprehensive National Emergency Telecommunication Plan, aligned with ITU guidelines, is not a technical option but a national imperative.
Sri Lanka owes it to its citizens to ensure that when the next cyclone, flood, or landslide strikes, information flows faster than floodwaters. The cost of unpreparedness is measured not only in billions of rupees but also in lives that need not be lost.
Cyclone Ditwah must be remembered not only for the destruction it caused but also for the transformation it demanded.