Bound by blood, buried by the storm

People standing near an entire village which was buried by a landslide in Rambuk Ela, Sri Lanka, on Dec 6, 2025. The most devastating storm to lash the island nation in decades killed around 800 people last month. It swallowed villages, wiping out entire communities in the hardest hit central hill region of Kandy. — Atul Loke/The New York Times

THE hillside hamlet was built around a matriarch’s stubborn, scandalous love.

Its four homes – stone foundations, concrete walls and lives governed by the strict discipline of HM Koinmanike – had withstood tropical downpours and decades of social stigma after her decision to marry a man of another ethnicity.