Nearly 20 passengers were injured on Wednesday evening when a private bus veered off the road and struck a tree near the Upparu-aru Bridge on the Trincomalee–Batticaloa main road in the Kinniya police division.
The bus was operating a scheduled public transport service from Trincomalee to Mutur when it lost control, Ada Derana reported. Most of the injured passengers were initially admitted to the Mutur Base Hospital, with four later transferred to the Trincomalee District General Hospital for more serious treatment. Three of those transferred were subsequently moved to the Intensive Care Unit.
The accident caused traffic disruptions on the main road for several hours as emergency responders cleared the scene. Kinniya Police have launched an investigation into the circumstances of the crash. No fatalities have been reported.
The Trincomalee–Mutur corridor is one of the main east-coast transport arteries and routinely carries high passenger volumes across the Kinniya ferry and bridge points. The Upparu-aru Bridge, completed in recent years to replace earlier ferry crossings, sits on a single-carriageway approach that has seen repeated calls for safety upgrades. Wednesday’s crash is the latest of several serious accidents reported on the route in recent months.
