COLOMBO: At least 37 people were killed and 223,687 rendered homeless by heavy rains and landslides in the central regions of Sri Lanka as thousands of army men joined government officials, police personnel and volunteers in efforts to rescue those hit by the calamity, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said here on Wednesday.

Reports earlier in the day had said that 200 to 400 people might have died and that some 200 families were missing.

Aranayake in Kegalle district, about 70km north of Colombo, was hit particularly badly by landslides that ravaged at least three villages.

Rescue work was being hampered by swollen rivers, torrential rains and lack of electricity, official said.

Rescue workers had so far recovered 16 bodies at Aranayake and Bulathkohupitiya and taken 350 peo-pie to safety, DMC officials said.

It was in Aranayake that 200 families were reported to have gone missing. Of these, 180 persons were rescued, a report said.

Army spokesman Brig Jayanath Jayaweera said 15 officers and 266 other personnel had mounted rescue missions at Aranayake. The men are drawn from the commando, engineering and medical units of the army.

Agencies add: `As of 1800 hours, 134 are still missing...,` Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe, ofñcerin charge of the rescue operation, said.

`We have stopped the operations for the day because it`s dark and the operation continued for over 20 hours. We will start again tomorrow morning.

A Red Cross official who attended a disaster meeting at the Aranayake landslide site said earlier it was feared the death toll would be `around 300-400`.

Flooding and drought are cyclical in Sri Lanka, which is battered by a southern monsoon between May and September, while a northeastern monsoon runs from December to February.