ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Dialog Axiata has restored connectivity to most of the island, with recovery teams working with the Air Force, Navy, and the regulator after Cyclone Ditwah ripped apart fibre lines and towers died without power, a top official said.
Sri Lanka’s telecom networks went under in most areas; the electricity grid went down in the hill country in Nuwara Eliya, Gampola and Kandy people were without water or telephone connections for almost three days.
Last night connectivity was restored to Nuwara Eliya, Dialog Group Chief Executive, Supun Weerasinghe said Monday.
Minister of Digital Infrastructure Eranga Weeraratne told Sri Lanka’s Hiru Network Sunday that the fibre backbones were ripped in 11 places. By Sunday only two cables were down including the one to Nuwara Eliya.
Out of 16,000 mobile towers, 4,000 were out due to power and fuel. Minister Weeraratne was unable to say whether any tower was actually destroyed by the Cyclone Ditwah.
The fibre network works by bringing all traffic to Colombo and re-sending them via the outward line.
About 78 percent of the grid in Polonnaruwa was up by Monday morning, and 93 percent of Anuradhapura.
About 65 percent of Kandy was up but power was still out in many locations.
Risky Business
The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission and Ministry of Digital Infrastructure worked with networks to coordinate with the Army, Navy and Air Force and Ceylon Electricity Board to provide support, Weerasinghe said.
“We got a lot of support from the military,” Weerasinghe said.
Recovery teams from all networks worked overnight in areas with live landslides to connect fibre networks, he said.
“People put their lives at risk,” Weerasinghe said. In Chilaw our team had to stay in the Deduru Oya jungles overnight. They could not be evacuated. People put their hearts and lives to it, across all networks.”
A recovery team of the Road Development Authority were swept away by a landslide in the hill country.
RELATED : Cyclone Ditwah hits 206 major roads in Sri Lanka, 10 bridges damaged
Some areas could not be reached until authorities gave the go ahead.
The Air Force air lifted teams and Sri Lanka Telecom shared networks.
“The prime objective is to have connectivity,” Weerasinghe said. “There is good infrastructure sharing. At the back we all work very closely though you may see people competing for customers.”
When the Sri Lanka Telecom line to Maldives went down last week, Dialog patched their cable to keep the archipelago connected, he said.
Some base stations were restored powered by generators to help early responders, he said.
When the Mavil Aru dam developed leaks identified a Dialog team kept the network up identified subscribers were messaged and warned through automated recordings.
Minister Weeratne said Starlink had given 30 handsets for rescue teams and free service to its 5,000 customers in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan mobile networks were also giving a 1 GB of data, a package of voice minutes and text messages free to customers.
Powering Up
About one third of the critical base stations had generators but fuel could not be supplied as roads were impassable and parts of the fibre network was ripped away by landslides.
About 1,200 towers had solar panels.
“When the sun came up we were able to get them running,” Weerasinghe said. “After the economic crisis we started installing solar panels.”
The Dialog towers were intact. Two years ago following an audit, a billion rupee program was put in motion to strengthen towers, where guy masts were strengthened and corroded metal replaced, he said.
Cyclone Ditwah was an unusual system which moved very slowly over the island northwards over two days dumping large volumes of water on already saturated land, without degrading overland, with relatively low wind speeds below 90 kilometres.
As of Monday December 01, the lower reaches of the Mahaweli River, Kelani and Deduru Oya is still at flood level.
In Puttalam about 50 percent of the network was up, Weerasinghe said. The power grid remained disconnected. In Ampara about 50 percent of the network was up. Teams were working to restore the rest.
Trincomalee district was still under water on Monday as Mahaweli waters were still moving down.
Some parts of Colombo were still under water and power was switched off. (Colombo/Dec01/2025 – Update III)
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