COLOMBO: An overcrowded bus carrying dozens of Buddhist pilgrims plummeted into a precipice in Sri Lanka on Sunday, killing at least 21 and injuring 24, a senior transport official said.

The island nation’s winding roads are among the most dangerous in the world, and the crash off a cliffside road on Sunday was among the deadliest recorded in Sri Lanka in decades.

The roof and side panels of the bus were sheared off, and more than half the seats were ripped from the floor of the vehicle, which landed wheels up into a tea plantation.

The state-owned bus was carrying around 70 passengers, about 20 more than its capacity, through the central hilly region of Kotmale when the driver lost control and it veered off the road before dawn, police said.

“We are trying to establish whether it was a mechanical failure or if the driver fell asleep at the wheel,” a police official said.

Deputy Transport Minister Prasanna Gunasena told reporters at the scene that the injured were rushed to two area hospitals.

“Twenty-one have died and we are trying to identify the victims,” Gunasena said.

The toll could have been higher, the minister added, if not for local residents helping pull people from the mangled wreckage and rushing them to hospital.

Police said 24 people were being treated in the two hospitals.

The bus was travelling from the pilgrim town of Kataragama in the island’s deep south to the central city of Kurunegala, a distance of about 250kms.

Sunday’s bus accident was one of the worst in the country since April 2005 when a driver attempted to beat a train at a level crossing in the town of Polgahawela. The bus driver was lightly injured, but 37 passengers were killed.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2025