N.D. Hettiarachchi, director of Sri Lanka's National Disaster Management Center, also warned of landslides in hilly regions which have been lashed by near-constant rainfall since Wednesday.
Some 260,000 people so far have been affected by the floods, he said.
"We have allocated 10 million rupees (100,000 dollars) to provide initial relief measures," he told AFP.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006