KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka —A 17-year-old woman was killed, and two others were seriously injured on Wednesday when a passenger train struck their car at a busy, unguarded railway crossing near the University of Jaffna’s Kilinochchi campus.
The collision occurred at the Ariviyal Nagar crossing, on the access road to the university campus, when the Yal Devi Express, traveling north from Colombo toward Jaffna, struck the car at about 11:30 a.m., Sri Lanka Railways said.
The victim was identified as Dineshkumar Akyasa, 17, of Selva Nagar, Kilinochchi. She died at the scene. The car’s two other occupants were rescued with serious injuries and taken to a hospital for treatment. Police in Kilinochchi are investigating the crash.
The crossing has no gate and no railway employee stationed to control road traffic, despite the growth of the university campus and the resulting rise in vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Sri Lanka Railways said the crossing was equipped with warning signal lights and that they were functioning at the time of the collision, but residents in Kilinochchi disputed that account, saying the warning system was not functioning properly.
The absence of a gate or crossing keeper has become a particular concern as the area around the crossing, known as Ariviyal Nagar, has developed around the campus, transforming what was once a lightly traveled road into a key route for students, university employees, residents and other motorists.
Wednesday’s death was not the first serious collision in the area. A few people have been killed in railway-crossing accidents in Kilinochchi this year alone, according to Jaffna Monitor’s Kilinochchi correspondent. In February 2023, a bus belonging to the Sri Lanka Transport Board and a car collided with a train nearby, leaving three people hospitalized. In April 2015, four people were killed and two injured when a vehicle collided with a train in the Mankulam-Ariviyal Nagar area, according to police reports from the time.
Those accidents point to a longstanding safety problem along the railway corridor through Kilinochchi. In 2019, six soldiers were killed when their truck collided with an express train at an unprotected crossing in the district. An investigation afterward found that the crossing’s warning signal had been malfunctioning for months despite complaints, and that the crash was the third accident at that crossing in four months.
Sri Lanka Railways has installed gates and stationed attendants at some crossings in and around Kilinochchi, including those closer to the town and its railway station. But the Ariviyal Nagar crossing, despite the growth of the university area and the volume of traffic it now carries, remains without a gate or a person stationed to stop vehicles when trains approach.
Railway-crossing deaths are a broader national problem in Sri Lanka. The railway recorded 94 collisions between vehicles and trains at level crossings in 2022, resulting in 18 deaths and 45 injuries, according to figures published by the Ministry of Transport. The railway’s 2023 administrative report recorded 17 deaths and 49 injuries from crossing collisions that year.
Wednesday’s accident leaves a more immediate question for Sri Lanka Railways and the Ministry of Transport: after repeated serious accidents in Kilinochchi and the transformation of Ariviyal Nagar into a busy university district, why does this crossing still lack a gate or a permanent crossing keeper? As of Wednesday evening, neither the railway department nor the ministry had announced any new safety measures for the crossing.
