Search operations entered a second day on Sunday for a 26-year-old man who went missing in the Kelani River at Pokunugoda, Mulleriyawa, after reportedly drowning while bathing.
The man had gone to the river to bathe on Saturday when the incident occurred. Mulleriyawa Police, working with the Diving Unit of the Police Marine Division, began a special operation the same day.
The search resumed on Sunday. Authorities said the body had not been recovered.
Ada Derana did not name the man, give his home town, say whether he was with companions at the time, or report whether river conditions were a factor.
Context
Bathing deaths in inland waterways are a persistent cause of accidental death in Sri Lanka, and the Kelani — which runs through densely populated suburbs east of Colombo before reaching the sea at Modara — draws bathers along much of its lower course.
The National Water Safety Council and the Sri Lanka Coast Guard have been working through a committee on drowning prevention, part of a broader effort to reduce a toll that rises sharply around public holidays. Twenty deaths were recorded over the Avurudu holiday period in April.
No other verified newsroom had reported the Mulleriyawa search at the time of writing.
