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‘We can barely think of buying food’: Life in Sri Lanka – By Chris Barrett Source : theage.com.au A catastrophic mix of populist tax cuts, an ill-planned push for organic farming and political hubris sowed the seeds of the man-made tragedy unfolding in Sri Lanka today. n the shanties of north-east Colombo, they called it Garbage Mountain. No ordinary rubbish dump, it soared over the suburb of Kolonnawa, rising as high as 90 metres, as 800 tonnes of rubbish from Sri Lanka’s commercial capital was unloaded at the site every day. Five years ago, after a flood and a fire, it came crashing down, to catastrophic effect. “Suddenly we heard a really loud noise,” recalls Sandun Rohitha, who lived next to the waste pile in a home made of plastic sheets. “I had a helmet and safety jacket and I ran to the dump and pulled one man out. But I saw ...