Flying shrapnel triggered by explosions at an ammunition depot on the edge of Sri Lanka’s capital destroyed a hospital and hundreds of homes, sending thousands scrambling for cover, authorities said yesterday.
At least one soldier burned to death in the worst ammunition depot fire in Sri Lanka’s history and nearly 50 people were treated for injuries or smoke inhalation, Colombo medical chief Palitha Mahipala said.
The fire was extinguished about 12 hours after it started on Sunday evening at the Salawa Military Camp, setting off explosions that went on through the night.
Photo: AFP
“The fire has been put out, but still there are intermittent explosions,” army spokesman Jayanath Jayaweera told reporters. “That is why we are asking residents to keep away.”
Thousands of people living near the site were ordered to leave their homes and move to schools and temples.
“The Salawa hospital was evacuated soon after the fire and this morning we found that the hospital has been badly damaged,” a police officer at the scene told reporters. “Fortunately, all the patients there were taken out in time.”
Photo: AFP
Sri Lankan government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said the National Security Council was scheduled to meet yesterday to review the blast.
“This is a military matter and they must investigate if this was an accident or sabotage,” Senaratne said.
Businessman Neville Nishantha, 44, said he fled with his wife and three children as the explosions began and returned yesterday morning to see his house in ruins.
“A mortar bomb had gone through my roof and hit the living room,” Nishantha told reporters. “A wall collapsed in the bedroom where my three children would have slept.”
“We are lucky to have escaped. All of us started running as the explosions began,” he said.
Wasantha Fernando, 45, said he abandoned his home and ran as thick black smoke filled the area.
“When I got back this morning the entire place was covered in ash,” he said, adding that his house was now unstable.
Shortly after the first blasts, residents in Salawa were seen leaving in droves as police shut the main highway after shrapnel fell on it too.
The night sky was bright with an orange glow as huge fires raged and the area continued to shake every few minutes. Flying debris could be seen from 3km away, reporters said.
This was the second time in three weeks that Colombo residents were forced to leave their homes. Last month, about 200,000 residents in the capital were driven out of their homes by floods caused by the Kelani River bursting its banks.
The Salawa Military Camp, just by the Kelani River, is located at a former plywood factory about 36km east of Colombo.
It is used by the Sri Lankan army to store heavy weaponry and ammunition, including rockets.
“Pretty chaotic scenes on the road,” tweeted Sri Lankan Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Harsha de Silva, who was in the area on Sunday night. “I am estimating that thousands are evacuating.”
Sri Lankan Minister of Law and Order Sagala Ratnayake said the fire had spread quickly to two ammunition depots within the military complex and emergency responders initially struggled to extinguish it because they could not reach the source.
Officials declared yesterday a holiday for nearby schools and government offices.
The explosion was the worst at a military installation since the end of Sri Lanka’s decades-long Tamil separatist war in May 2009.
In June 2009, a much less intense explosion at an army ammunition storage facility in the northern district of Vavuniya, 250km north of Colombo, injured several soldiers.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in