Three persons including a two month old infant died when a multi-storied building in Buwelikada, Kandy caved-in and collapsed on a hotel located down below.
The victims are the owner of the hotel one Chamila Prasad (35), his wife Achala Ekanayake (32) and their child. Achala Ekanayake was a lawyer and a lecturer attached to the Open University.
The said building which was in Sanghamitta Mawatha, Buwelikada had caved-in and collapsed around 5.00 in the morning. According to the police, the owner of the collapsed building, his wife and three children had left the building around 3.00 am in the morning prior to the tragic incident.
Kandy SSP Sudath Masinghe stated that the said multi-storied building had been constructed at an extremely steep slope and when it collapsed, its debris had fallen upon two buildings that were located below the said building.When the debris fell over the hotel, its owner, his wife and child have been in one room and his mother and another female have been in another room.
Around 50 soldiers from the Sri Lanka Navy and Air Force carried out a rescue operation to recover the injured and the bodies.
Mother of deceased Achala Ekanayake said, “I was sleeping in the room adjacent to the one where my daughter, her husband and the child were sleeping. The girl who was working at the hotel was sleeping in my room. Around five in the morning, there was an earth tremor and a deafening sound. One of the walls in our room had collapsed right near my bed. I could not see anything. Somehow I stumbled upon the mobile phone. So I dialed 119 and informed them that the house collapsed. Then the police came and rescued us. The room where my daughter, her husband and the child were in was completely destroyed,”she said.
The police observed that the owner of the collapsed building and his family had abandoned the building without noticing or warning about the situation to anyone living nearby.
