“There are more than 100,000 large trees located within the CMC areas and 300 out of them have been identified as a clear threat to people or properties,” State Minister of Defence Premitha Bandara Tennakoon said. .

However, he said that the special committee appointed to look into the issue, will assess the extent of the threat and give a report. “It may be removing branches of the trees or complete removal of the trees,”he added.

The state minister said that he chaired a discussion on preventive action on dangerous trees falling and precautionary measures to mitigate possible hazards in suburban areas at the Disaster Management Center (DMC) in Colombo yesterday.