The Ministry of Labour is drawing up a new set of regulations governing sudden disasters in factories, following the fire at a helmet manufacturing plant in Homagama that killed five workers.
Deputy Minister of Labour Mahinda Jayasinghe said the decision was taken in direct response to that incident. Discussions have already been held with the Fire Services Department and the Urban Development Authority to frame the rules, he said.
The fire broke out on the morning of July 21 at a safety helmet factory in the Katuwana Industrial Zone in Homagama, tearing through a multi-storey building with more than 80 employees reported inside. Five bodies were recovered and three other people were taken to hospital.
The blaze exposed gaps in the plant’s compliance record. The Central Environmental Authority said the factory had not renewed its Environmental Protection Licence after 2024 and had failed to prepare a mandatory emergency response plan. Investigators from the Government Analyst’s Department Fire Division and Homagama Police have been examining the cause of the fire, and the Labour Ministry separately ordered a full probe into workplace safety standards and compliance at the site.
Sri Lanka’s industrial safety framework rests largely on the Factories Ordinance and licensing conditions administered by local authorities and the Central Environmental Authority, with fire safety approvals handled separately. Bringing the Fire Services Department and the Urban Development Authority into a single regulatory drafting process points to an attempt to close the gaps between those regimes.
It is not the only recent industrial fire to raise safety questions: in June, eight women were hospitalised for smoke inhalation after a blaze at a garment factory warehouse in Embilipitiya, an incident in which no deaths were reported. Neither the timeline for issuing the new regulations nor their legal form has been announced.
