India continues to block humanitarian assistance from Pakistan to cyclone-hit Sri Lanka: FO

• Deadly floods kill around 1,200 people in four countries, including Sri Lanka.
• India's partial flight clearance after 48 hours is “operationally impractical”. 
• Delay severely hinders urgent relief mission for people of Sri Lanka: FO.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that India has been blocking humanitarian assistance from Pakistan to Sri Lanka amid the devastation in the island nation following the deadly floods.

Torrential rains and floods triggered by Cyclone Ditwah have killed over 350 people in Sri Lanka, the country’s disaster management agency reported.

In a statement, the Foreign Office (FO) said that a special aircraft carrying relief supplies faced a delay of more than 60 hours while awaiting flight clearance by India.

According to the FO, the partial flight clearance issued by India after 48 hours was “operationally impractical”, as it was time-bound for only a few hours and provided no validity for the return flight, severely hindering the urgent relief mission for the people of Sri Lanka.

Torrential monsoon deluges and two separate tropical cyclones last week dumped heavy rain across all of Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand, and northern Malaysia.

Climate change is producing more intense rainfall events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and warmer oceans can accelerate storms. The floodwaters have now largely receded, but the devastation means hundreds of thousands of people are living in shelters and struggling to secure clean water and food.

Aid groups said they were working to ship supplies to affected areas, warning that local markets were running out of essentials and prices had already tripled. 

A separate storm brought heavy rains across Sri Lanka, triggering flash floods and deadly landslides that killed at least 390 people. Another 352 remain missing, and some of the worst-hit regions in the country’s centre are still difficult to reach.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency, calling it the “most challenging natural disaster in our history”. Unlike his Indonesian counterpart, he has appealed for international aid. 

Sri Lanka’s air force, supported by India and Pakistan, has been evacuating stranded residents and delivering food and supplies. Although rains have eased, landslide alerts remain in force across much of the central region, officials said.