At least 18 people were injured when a Sri Lanka Transport Board bus and a private bus collided at the Karadupana junction in Kegalle early on Monday (3).
Police said 18 people were injured and admitted to hospital. Aruna reported that about 20 were hurt, and put the time of the collision at around 6.15 a.m. The injured were taken to Kegalle Teaching Hospital.
The SLTB bus was running from Rambukkana to Kandy and the private bus from Digana towards Colombo when the two met head-on, according to Aruna. Kegalle Police are conducting further investigations.
No deaths have been reported.
Police put the number of injured at 18 in a national road-accident summary issued later on Monday, which recorded three deaths and 19 injuries in accidents across the country, NewsFirst reported.
Context
Karadupana lies on the busy Kandy-Colombo corridor through Kegalle, a route carrying heavy early-morning commuter and school traffic in both directions.
The collision comes during a sustained wet spell across the central hills and Sabaragamuwa. Neither Hiru News nor Aruna gave a cause for the crash, and neither linked it to the weather. The Kegalle district is currently under National Building Research Organisation landslide warnings — a second-level alert for Yatiyantota and first-level watches for Aranayake and Dehiowita — while the Met Department has forecast rainfall above 100 mm at some places in neighbouring Sabaragamuwa and the Kandy and Nuwara Eliya districts.
Sunday saw a separate fatal road accident in the east, where two young men died in a motorcycle-tipper collision near Muttur.
