Emergency repairs to a leaking water main near D.S. Junction in Borella have restricted the lane carrying traffic into Colombo, and police reported heavy congestion around the junction on Wednesday morning — the second day of the disruption.
The restriction was announced on Tuesday afternoon and the congestion materialised on Wednesday, in two filings roughly seventeen hours apart.
What police announced on Tuesday
The Daily Mirror reported at 3.59 p.m. on Tuesday, citing the Police Media Division, that traffic entering Colombo near D.S. Junction would be restricted because of emergency repairs to a leaking water pipe.
Excavation work was under way on the road running from Model Farm Junction towards D.S. Junction, near D.S. Senanayake Mawatha, to repair the damaged pipe system. The restriction applies to the lane entering Colombo.
Police asked motorists heading into the city via Parliament Road, Castle Street and Model Farm to take alternative routes, and set out two of them:
- Turn back at Model Farm Junction and proceed along Old Bullers Road towards the cemetery roundabout.
- Enter Kota Road from Ayurveda Junction and continue via Borella Junction.
What police reported on Wednesday
By Wednesday morning the queues had formed. Hiru News reported at 8.47 a.m. that police described heavy congestion on roads around the area because of the repair work on the leak near Borella D.S. Junction.
The congestion was reported around the D.S. roundabout and the cemetery (Kanatta) roundabout, on the roads entering Colombo from D.S. Senanayake Mawatha via Parliament Road, and around Castle Street and Model Farm Road.
Police again advised drivers using those roads to take alternative routes and to plan journeys allowing for the delay.
The two accounts line up
The filings agree on the location, the cause and the affected roads. The Daily Mirror names the specific stretch under excavation and lists the signposted diversions; Hiru names the two roundabouts where traffic is actually backing up. Read together they describe one continuous disruption rather than two separate incidents — the restriction announced on Tuesday afternoon, still in force and biting during Wednesday’s morning peak.
Borella’s D.S. Junction sits on one of the main approaches into central Colombo from the east, which is why a single closed lane there reaches Parliament Road, Castle Street and Model Farm at once.
Not reported
Neither filing says when the work will finish. Neither gives a date or a time for completion, and the Tuesday announcement carried no expected duration — so there is no published basis for telling drivers whether Thursday will be affected.
Neither report names the agency carrying out the repair. Both attribute the information to police rather than to a water utility, and the National Water Supply and Drainage Board is not quoted in either filing. As a result no filing says whether water supply to the area is interrupted, how large the leak is, or how long it had been leaking before the emergency repair began.
Neither gives the extent of the delay in minutes, and neither reports any diversion arrangements for buses.
Sources: Daily Mirror, Hiru News (Sinhala).
