At least 21 people have been killed and many others injured when a bus carrying dozens of Buddhist pilgrims in central Sri Lanka careened off a cliff, according to authorities.
The crash took place early on Sunday in a mountainous area near the town of Kotmale, about 140km (86 miles) east of the capital, Colombo.
“Twenty one have died and we are trying to identify the victims,” Deputy Minister of Transport and Highways Prasanna Gunasena told local media.
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.
Television footage showed the bus overturned at the bottom of a precipice while volunteers helped rescue injured people from the rubble.
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, photos of the wreckage showed.
Police said 24 people were being treated in two hospitals.
One survivor told a local journalist that he had been in the front section of the bus and was lucky to have escaped with only minor injuries.
“The bus was leaning to the left side and as the driver was negotiating a bend, he lost control and it fell down the precipice,” said the man, who did not give his name, in a video seen by AFP news agency.
The vehicle, operated by a state-run bus company, was travelling from the pilgrim town of Kataragama in the south to the central city of Kurunegala, about 250km (155 miles) away.
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