Eight people including 6 children missing as heavy rains trigger flooding in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Eight people, including six children who were returning from school, have gone missing in Sri Lanka when the farm tractor they were traveling on was swept away by floods triggered by heavy rains, police said Wednesday.

Sri Lanka has experienced heavy downpours and strong winds over the past two days that have flooded homes, fields and roads and forced authorities to suspend train services in tea-growing mountain areas.

In the worst incident, a farm tractor carrying 11 school children was swept away Tuesday evening in the eastern region of the country, police said.

Five children were rescued while six other children along with the driver and another adult are still missing in the incident near the town of Karaitivu. A search operation is underway, police said in a statement.

Separately, a woman died when a brick wall collapsed on her in the mountainous region of Badulla in the central part of the country. Eight people were injured in various other weather-related incidents, the Disaster Management Center said.

As of Wednesday, over 3,000 people had been moved to evacuation centers and nearly 600 homes were damaged,

Army and navy troops were deployed to rescue victims and provide food and other essentials to those affected.

The Meteorology Department attributed the severe weather to a deep depression in the Bay of Bengal and warned it is likely to move closer to Sri Lanka and intensify into a cyclonic storm on Thursday.

Sri Lanka has been grappling with severe weather since May, mostly caused by heavy monsoon rains. In June, 16 people died due to floods and mudslides.