After the cyclone: Can Sri Lanka’s economy recover?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sri Lanka: a country long loved and marketed as a tropical paradise is reeling after Cyclone Ditwah, which hit the island nation last November.
The storm left a third of the island in ruins. Hundreds of lives were lost, homes were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. The country's President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has called it the country's worst-ever economic disaster. Can it recover?
We hear from citizens and businesses affected by the latest disaster to hit a country that has already endured so many setbacks.
If you'd like to get in touch with the team, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk
Presented and produced by Vishala Sri-Pathma
Business Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.
Each episode is a 17-minute deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.
Recent episodes explore the weight-loss drug revolution, the growth in AI, the cost of living, why bond markets are so powerful, China's property bubble, and Gen Z's experience of the current job market.
We also feature in-depth interviews with company founders and some of the world's most prominent CEOs. These include Google's Sundar Pichai, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and the CEO of Starbucks, Brian Niccol.
(Photo: An aerial view of Warsaw, Poland, including modern skyscrapers. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.5 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Vashala, Sri |
| 0:11.7 | Pathma. Today, we're in Sri Lanka, an island long loved by tourists and marketed as a tropical |
| 0:18.6 | paradise. But right now, it's picking up the pieces after a devastating cyclone. |
| 0:24.4 | In the days that the cyclone swept through Sri Lanka, I've met so many families who just in |
| 0:30.9 | one night have lost everything and once again have to rebuild their lives from the ground up. |
| 0:37.0 | We'll hear from people and businesses impacted by the latest disaster |
| 0:41.0 | to hit a country that's already endured so many setbacks. |
| 0:45.6 | We've effectively lost almost the decade in terms of growth. |
| 0:49.9 | A developing country like Sri Lanka should have grown by about 50% in a period of time like that. |
| 0:56.0 | That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:05.8 | Cyclone Ditworth struck Sri Lanka without warning. |
| 1:09.4 | The sound you're hearing is floodwater rushing through |
| 1:12.3 | ordinary streets, cars, furniture, even makeshift rafts carrying animals swept along in the current. |
| 1:20.4 | The storm left a third of the island in ruins, hundreds of lives lost, homes destroyed |
| 1:26.6 | and hundreds of thousands displaced. |
| 1:29.6 | According to the president, it's the country's worst ever economic disaster. |
| 1:34.9 | Among those affected are tea plantation workers in the hills who've lost family members |
| 1:39.7 | and now wonder how they'll survive, were their houses gone. |
| 1:50.6 | My son, parents-in-law, daughter, mother-in-law, two grandsons are all dead. |
| 1:58.0 | I don't have any protection here. |
| 1:59.6 | They were all I had. We've lost our land, house, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.