A tree fell onto a Rambukkana-bound train as it approached Polgahawela on Tuesday evening, disrupting traffic on the Main Line.
The train had left Colombo Fort railway station at 5.10pm for Rambukkana and was running towards Polgahawela station when a tree standing beside the track came down on it, Hiru News reported.
The Railway Department said train traffic on the Main Line had been obstructed as a result.
Photographs published with the filing show a tree trunk and foliage lying against the side of a blue carriage after dark, consistent with a service that left Fort in the early evening.
A second rail disruption in a day
It is the second disruption on the network on Tuesday. Northern Line services between Wellawa and Ganewatta were suspended from 6.09am after the Deduru Oya overflowed across the track; that line reopened at 9.17am.
Both incidents come during a sustained wet spell. Eight spill gates are open at the Deduru Oya reservoir, discharging more than 15,300 cubic feet per second, and the Met Department’s Tuesday forecast carried falls above 75mm at some places. Rambukkana itself sits in one of the Kegalle divisions placed on a landslide watch from 4pm Tuesday.
Not reported
The filing does not say whether anyone was injured, how many passengers were aboard, whether the train was damaged or derailed, how long the Main Line would remain obstructed, or whether clearance work had begun. It does not attribute the fall to the weather, and this desk has not assumed that link.
Hiru News was the only verified newsroom carrying the incident at the time of writing.
