India to provide $450 million to cyclone-ravaged Sri Lanka

Colombo, Sri Lanka: India has committed $450 million in humanitarian assistance to help Sri Lanka recover from the devastating damage caused by Cyclon...

Colombo, Sri Lanka: India has committed $450 million in humanitarian assistance to help Sri Lanka recover from the devastating damage caused by Cyclone Ditwah, foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Tuesday on a visit to the country.

The cyclone killed more than 640 people when it swept across the South Asian island last month, causing floods and landslides that inflicted about $4 billion in damage, according to the World Bank, or 4 per cent of the country's GDP.

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has described the storm, which affected more than two million people, as the most challenging natural disaster in the island's history.

Jaishankar, who is on a two-day visit, told a media briefing in Colombo he had handed a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Dissanayake, committing to a "reconstruction package of $450 million".

While $350 million will take the form of "concessional lines of credit", the remaining $100 million will be given as grants.