SRI LANKA: Thirty-seven bus passengers were killed and dozens injured when a train rammed into the crowded vehicle at a level crossing in Sri Lanka yesterday, crushing it and setting it ablaze, officials said.
None of the passengers and crew on the train was hurt, a railway official said, but it was one of the island's worst accidents in years. Doctors said the death toll was likely to rise as many survivors were in a critical condition, particularly 10 people who had been moved to a Colombo hospital. The bus was said to have been carrying 70 to 100 people.
"The signal was green and the level crossing gates were closed," said train driver HA Sirisena at the site of the crash. "Then I saw the bus trying to cross . . . and the next thing I knew was the engine hitting the rear of the bus.
"After the first impact, the bus spun around and hit the train again. I have been in this job for 41 years and this is the first time something like this has happened," said the 59-year-old, with tears in his eyes.
The bus, which was dragged for about 300m on the track after the collision, lay in a mangled heap of metal, with its middle torn open.
Luggage, glass and children's clothes were strewn on the track and on the embankment, a few metres away from a road running parallel to the track in Polgahawela town, about 60km northeast of the capital, Colombo.
At the hospital morgue, relatives wailed over bodies of their loved ones as others lined up to check pictures of the dead stuck on a wall by police.
The bus driver and conductor were among the survivors, and were lying on opposite beds in the hospital.
The driver had apparently broken an ankle and refused to speak. Police said the two men had been arrested and were being guarded from angry survivors and relatives.Authorities blamed the crash on what they said was the bus driver's negligence.