Cyclone Ditwah has claimed at least 643 lives and displaced scores of people in Sri Lanka. While it has affected several villages and towns, the highest death toll has been recorded in Kandy in the Central Province. It is part of the island’s hill country that is home to the Malaiyaha Tamils, whose centuries-old precarity makes them especially vulnerable to such shocks. Meera Srinivasan reports on the disaster