COLOMBO, Sept 28 — A Buddhist monk injured in Sri Lanka’s cable car tragedy has died, raising the death toll to eight in what police described as the country’s worst accident of its kind.
COLOMBO, Sept 28 — A Buddhist monk injured in Sri Lanka’s cable car tragedy has died, raising the death toll to eight in what police described as the country’s worst accident of its kind.
Seven monks, including three foreigners, were killed instantly on Wednesday night when their cabin plunged down a mountainside near a forest monastery in the northwestern Kurunegala district.
Six others were hospitalised with injuries, four of them in critical condition.
“One of the six monks admitted to hospital succumbed to his injuries late last night,” a police official told AFP.
Funerals for five victims — four Sri Lankans and a Romanian — were held Saturday near the monastery. A Russian monk will be buried alongside the Sri Lankan monk who died in hospital, while the remains of an Indian monk have been repatriated to his family in India.
The 13 monks had crowded into a small improvised cabin on their way to meditation huts atop the mountain within the Na Uyana monastery complex.
Preliminary investigations suggest the cable snapped, sending the cabin hurtling downhill before it derailed and crashed into a tree.
The monastery lies about 130 kilometres (81 miles) northeast of Colombo. — AFP
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