(COLOMBO) – At least 20 persons were injured as a bus veered off the road and toppled in Sinhapura, Welikanda in Eastern Sri Lanka on Thursday morning.
The private owned bus packed with some 75 mill workers went down the slope after the driver lost control while moving at an excessive speed, police quoted eyewitnesses as saying.
Welikanda is situated some 257 kilometres east of the commercial capital Colombo.
None of the passengers sustained life-threatening injuries and were being treated at a nearby Government hospital, police said.
The driver of the bus has been detained for questioning.
Private passenger bus drivers are notorious for reckless driving in the island-nation amidst reports that many of them operate on a high intoxication.
Around 30 people die daily due to accidents and 12,000 annually due to road and domestic accidents in the country, Health Minister Ramesh Pathirana told Parliament on Thursday.
Road and domestic accidents have become a major health issue in Sri Lanka as one million out of a total of 6 million hospital admissions are due to accidents, Pathirana said.
