Colombo - At least 33 people were killed and 30 were wounded on Wednesday when a train ploughed into a bus at a level crossing in northern Sri Lanka, police and hospital officials said.
The packed bus tried and failed to cross the railway line near the town of Polgahawela, 80km northeast of Colombo, before the express train passed, the region's police chief Asoka Ratnaweera said.
"Our initial figure is at least 30 bus passengers were killed," Ratnaweera said, discounting local media reports which said 50 people were feared dead.
Ratnaweera said the bus caught fire after the crash which he blamed on the driver's "gross negligence".
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There were no immediate reports of casualties among the train passengers.
The 45-seat, privately owned bus, travelling from the north-central town of Anuradhapura, may have been overcrowded, police said. They believed more than 60 people were on board.
The bodies of 33 victims were brought to the region's main Kurunegala hospital while the injured had been taken to three hospitals in the area, a spokesperson for the main hospital said.
"All the dead have been brought only to Kurunegala hospital where there are 33 bodies of bus passengers in the morgue," a hospital spokesperson said. "The total number of those admitted and undergoing treatment now is 30."
Two police officers were among those killed.
Sri Lankan roads are among the most dangerous in South Asia. Police figures show that 2 096 people were killed in 1 933 fatal crashes out of a total of 60 000 accidents reported in 2003. - AFP
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