Three young men drowned at the Victoria Reservoir near the Bambaragala Temple area of the Teldeniya Police Division on Sunday, with a fourth member of the group rescued unharmed, Ada Derana reported.
The four, all aged between 18 and 21 and residents of Werellagama, Kandy, had gone swimming in the reservoir during the day. Police initially recovered two bodies and reported one of the four still missing, with the survivor pulled from the water alive. The body of the missing fourth youth was found later in the evening, raising the death toll to three.
Identities of the deceased had not been released by police at the time of reporting. The Teldeniya Police are continuing inquiries.
Victoria Reservoir, fed by the Mahaweli river system, is one of Sri Lanka’s largest hydropower dams and is bordered by steep, deep-water shorelines along Bambaragala — features that have made unsupervised bathing there hazardous in past years. Several earlier drowning incidents at the reservoir have prompted police to warn the public against swimming in unfenced sections.
Sunday’s tragedy comes a week after the Free Socialist Party criticised the operational release of Victoria water for hydropower generation, raising broader concerns about reservoir level management and public safety along the catchment.
Sri Lanka has seen a wave of drowning fatalities through the long-weekend and Avurudu travel periods this year, with public health officials launching a national drowning prevention mechanism earlier this month to coordinate water-safety messaging and rescue protocols across districts.
