A 41-year-old man from the Glantilwatta area of Maskeliya in the Central Province has died after a mound of earth collapsed on him, police said.
Preliminary investigations indicate that the victim, a resident of Glantilwatta, was removing soil near his house in preparation for the construction of another building when the mound gave way and buried him, Ada Derana reported.
Maskeliya Police are conducting further investigations into the incident. The man’s identity has not been publicly released.
Maskeliya sits in the steeply terraced upper-watershed plantation district of the Nuwara Eliya District, where unstable cut-and-fill slopes near home extensions are a recurring cause of fatal collapses. The accident follows a series of drowning and weather-related fatalities over the recent Vesak long weekend, including the Kalametiya beach tragedy in which three students died.
