Her rant was viewed tens of thousands of times and set off a social-media firestorm about class, influence and privilege. Meanwhile, worries about the environmental fallout from a downed ship were forgotten
So naturally all that many Sri Lankans have discussed for the past week is Piumi Hansamali, a 28-year-old model and actress. On the same day that the ship sank, police in the capital, Colombo, bundled Ms Hansamali and more than a dozen other people into an old bus and drove them to Passara, a distant village, for a compulsory two-week quarantine.
Ms Hansamali, an accomplished social-media influencer with over 400,000 followers on Facebook and another 1.6m followers on Instagram, shot back with an angry, finger-pointing Facebook Live broadcast from the bus. Wiping sweat off her brow, she heaped wrath on a television journalist who had urged police to punish the revellers .
The online rant was viewed over 34,000 times and set off a social-media firestorm about class, influence and privilege. When allegations later emerged that Sarath Weerasekera, the public-security minister, had ordered the bus to turn round so that its occupants could pick up clothes, the maritime disaster was all but forgotten. On June 5th a local news website wryly noted that searches on Google for Ms Hansamali and Mr Jayasinghe far exceeded those for the sunken ship.
The episode reflects a deeper unhappiness with the government’s enforcement of lockdown rules. For days before the bus incident, police had cracked down on violators, in some cases physically carrying them off the streets. But the partygoers were detained only after pressure from the media. Nor was the hotel punished for allowing the bash.
Yet the embarrassment for the government is minor compared with the political headache the sunken ship is threatening to become. Dead turtles and dolphins have started washing ashore, fishing is disrupted and hundreds of soldiers are still scooping nurdles from the coastline. Fears abound of leaks from the vessel’s fuel tanks. A criminal investigation is under way. Five expert groups are assessing the damage with a view to securing maximum compensation from the ship’s owners.
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