A 15-year-old girl has died after falling from the upper floor of a three-storey house in Grandpass, Colombo. Police say the circumstances of the fall are not yet established, and will report the facts to the Hulftsdorp Magistrate’s Court.
The fall happened on Tuesday evening (27 October) at a house on Layards Broadway, the Daily Mirror reported at 11.11 a.m. on Wednesday, citing police. The girl, a resident of the area, was seriously injured and admitted to the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, where she later died while receiving treatment.
NewsFirst reported at 10.29 a.m. that she died during treatment at the same hospital, and added two details the Daily Mirror does not carry.
What the second filing adds
Preliminary investigations found that the girl’s parents are employed abroad, and that she had been living in the house with her grandmother and uncle.
NewsFirst also states plainly that the exact circumstances surrounding the fall remain unclear, and that Grandpass Police will report the facts to the Hulftsdorp Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.
That last step is routine rather than an indication of suspicion. Under Sri Lankan practice a sudden or unnatural death is reported to the magistrate, who directs an inquiry and, where required, a post-mortem examination. It is the mechanism by which a cause of death is formally established, and it applies equally to accidents.
Where the accounts agree
The two filings are consistent on every point they both cover: the age, the three-storey house at Grandpass, the fall from an upper floor on Tuesday evening, the admission to Lady Ridgeway and the death during treatment. Neither names the girl, and this desk is not seeking to.
Not reported
No filing states how the fall happened, which floor she fell from, or whether anyone else was present. Neither reports the time of the fall, the time of death, or how long she was under treatment.
Neither says whether a post-mortem has been ordered or carried out, nor what the magistrate directed. Neither reports whether she attended school locally, how long her parents have been overseas, or whether they have been informed.
Neither account suggests a cause, and nothing published supports any inference about one. This article carries none.
On sourcing: two verified newsrooms, the Daily Mirror and NewsFirst, filed independently within 45 minutes of each other on Wednesday morning. Neither Hiru News nor EconomyNext had filed when this was written, and Ada Derana has returned a CloudFront block to this desk for 47 consecutive days.