A 17-year-old has died after the tractor he was travelling in overturned and plunged from the Rambawala tank bund into the tank, police said.
The tractor was travelling along the bund on the Divulwewa–Weligollawa Road when its driver lost control while trying to avoid a cow tethered on the bund, Ada Derana reported. The vehicle veered off the embankment and flipped into the tank.
Three people, including the driver — who sustained severe injuries — were admitted to Kahatagasdigiliya Base Hospital. One of them, a 17-year-old resident of the Weligollewa area, later died while receiving treatment.
Divulwewa Police are conducting further investigations.
The tank bunds that carry minor roads across Sri Lanka’s dry-zone irrigation network are narrow, unbarriered and typically raised several metres above the water — a combination that leaves little room to correct a swerve. Kahatagasdigiliya, in the Anuradhapura District, is the nearest base hospital serving the area.
Not reported
Ada Derana did not name the deceased, give the ages or conditions of the two survivors, or say when the accident occurred. It did not report how many people were on the tractor in total, whether it was carrying a load or trailer, or whether the driver has been arrested. No outlet has reported whether the cow’s owner has been identified — tethering livestock on a tank bund is common practice in the dry zone, and no source addressed whether it is being treated as a factor in the investigation.
Ada Derana is the only outlet to have carried the story. Its own report spells the locality two ways — Weligollawa in the road name and Weligollewa for the victim’s home area — and does not reconcile them.
