Local police said that a crowded bus in dozens of Buddhist pilgrims crashed in a depression in Sri Lanka on Sunday, killing 15 and injured at least 30.
In the decades, in the worst road accidents in the country, the state -owned bus was traveling through the central mountainous region of Kotmale when the driver lost control and closed a clifted road before morning, police said.
It was carrying around 70 passengers – about 20 more than its capacity – the police said, a investigation was going on.
A local police officer told AFP by telephone, “We are trying to establish whether it was a mechanical failure or if the driver had slept on the wheel,” a local police officer told the AFP by the telephone.
“Fifteen people have died and we have sent 30 hospitals,” mostly Buddhists, added to the officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The bus was traveling from a pilgrim city of Katragama in the middle city of Kurunegala in the deep south of the island, at a distance of about 250 kilometers (155 mi).
Sri Lanka recorded 3,000 road deadly performances annually, making the most dangerous island roads in the world.
Sunday’s bus accident was the worst in Sri Lanka since April 2005, when a driver attempted to defeat a level crossing a level in the city of Pollahla. The bus driver fled with minor injuries, but 37 passengers were killed.
In March 2021, the driver of 13 passengers and a private -owned bus died when the vehicle crashed in an infrastructure in Pasar, about 100 kilometers before the accident scene on Sunday.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
