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For days before the bus incident, police had cracked down on violators, in some cases physically carrying them off the streets. Ms Hansamali, for her part, made the best of a bad situation and took to posting pictures on Instagram of her quarantine digs”The episode reflects a deeper unhappiness with the government’s enforcement of lockdown rules. 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. ….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. heaped wrath on a television journalist who had urged police to punish the revellers (he later complained to police of death threats). “Ms Hansamali, an accomplished social-media influencer …. Ms Hansamali had earlier been arrested and released on bail for attending a birthday party on May 30th for Chandimal Jayasinghe, a beautician and beauty-pageant impresario, in a five-star hotel, in violation of a lockdown that started in the middle of May. 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. “But naturally all that many Sri Lankans have discussed for the past week is Piumi Hansamali, a 28-year-old model and actress. Hard questions have been asked about why the vessel, which was known to have a leaky container of acid, was allowed to enter Sri Lankan waters. Nurdles and other debris are washing up on beaches. Its cargo-everything from frozen fish to hazardous chemicals and tiny plastic pellets known as nurdles-burned up or spilled into the ocean. “For two weeks an inferno blazed on the X-Press Pearl, a container ship off Sri Lanka’s western coast. Push the boat out: An influencer’s rant overshadows an ecological disaster in Sri Lanka “Influence” is, after all, part of the job description Here below are excerpts with title intact. I must add I could not believe that the Economist would devote half a page to this but verifying, found it was The Brit weekly. I quote part of the article for you to enjoy or curl your noses in disgust at how low we are sinking as a nation. It’s mainly about a slip of a girl with strident voice and apparent clout with high ups, and other pluses we suppose which to us Ordinaries are deplorable minuses. It is not about our economy (sinking) or C19 spread (exponential) or being the first country to ban chemical fertilizers (disastrous in its overnight implementation). Yes, yes, Sri Lanka has got a column in the British Economist, one of the most prestigious of weeklies. You could read on-line but there’s nothing like holding a newspaper in hand. So many of us newspaper readers yearned for paper copy. I actually hugged it as I would a lost child. Such was my emotion when I opened my front door on Friday 11 June and saw The Island newspaper in crisp print lying there waiting to be read. In this time of natural disasters and government’s omissions and commissions a leaky burning ship surreptitiously invited to seek haven just outside our Colombo Port for money considerations, destroying our wonderful sea and life in it for a hundred years, one hugs little bits of normalcy that intrude joyfully our woeful state.