Around 10 people were injured on Monday evening when a passenger bus travelling from Colombo to Galle veered off the Southern Expressway near the Pinnaduwa interchange, crashed through a safety gate at the entry point and collided with a nearby utility pole, Ada Derana and Newswire reported.
Expressway personnel and police rushed to the scene and transferred the injured to the Galle National Hospital for treatment, according to the reports. None of the injuries was immediately described as critical.
The Pinnaduwa Expressway Police have launched an investigation into the cause of the crash. Investigators have not yet indicated whether mechanical failure, driver error or roadway conditions were the primary factor.
The accident is the latest in a cluster of serious road incidents on Sri Lanka’s high-speed road network and southern arterial corridor in recent days. A bus crash at Pinnaduwa, the gateway to Galle on the Southern Expressway, carries particular weight because the interchange handles a high volume of intercity passenger services to the Southern Province.
Sri Lanka has seen a sustained run of serious weekend and evening crashes in the western Colombo–Kalutara belt and on its expressway network, including the fatal Meegoda Vesak-dansala cab collision that killed six, the Hanwella drunken hit-and-run that killed two women and the Horana–Elawella SUV fatality over the past week.
