Sri Lanka’s military more than halved the estimated death toll from an accidental blast at an explosives depot on Friday, saying 27 people had been killed instead of 60.
“The death toll is 25 policemen and two Chinese contractors, not 60 dead as we said earlier,” military spokesperson Ubaya Medawala told Agence France-Presse.
Investigations are ongoing to find the cause of the blast, he said.
Three containers of munitions exploded, severely damaging the police station in Karadiyanaru, 375km by road from the capital, Colombo, and injuring at least 49 people who have been admitted to local hospitals.
“It’s an accidental explosion. The munitions were kept at the police station for safety reasons. They exploded as police were issuing some munitions to the contractors,” Medawala said.
The Chinese contractors were working for state-run China Overseas Holdings Limited, a construction company carrying out building work in the war-ravaged area, according to police spokesperson Prishantha Jayakoddy.
Karadiyanaru is a fishing village that was previously under control of the separatist Tamil Tiger group, which fought for more than three decades for a homeland for the Tamil ethnic group on the Indian Ocean island.
War-crimes allegations
The civil war ended in May last year when government troops crushed the rebels in a military offensive that has since been dogged by war-crimes allegations.
Shanthi Udayakumar, a nurse at the nearby Batticaloa hospital, about 15km from Karadiyanaru, was on duty at the time of the explosion.
“I could feel the tremors of the blast,” she said. “Lots of injured people are being brought in.”
Chinese infrastructure companies are highly active in Sri Lanka, fuelling concerns in neighbouring India about the growing influence of China in South Asia.
State-run firms are building two ports in Sri Lanka, one in the southern town of Hambantota and another in Colombo.
China Overseas Holdings has completed numerous large projects, including the international airport passenger terminal building in Hong Kong, where it first started operations. — AFP