At least seven Buddhist monks killed in cable car accident at Sri Lankan monastery

By Catherine Nicholls and Esha Mitra, CNN

(CNN) — At least seven Buddhist monks, including three foreign nationals, died in a cable car accident at a Sri Lankan monastery on Wednesday, local police told CNN.

The monks were among 13 people traveling on the cable car at the Na Uyana Monastery in central Sri Lanka, which spreads over more than 5,000 acres of forest on a mountain range, Pansiyagama Police said.

The incident took place at around 9 p.m. local time (11:30 a.m. ET) on Wednesday, according to police. Of those who were killed, three were foreign nationals from India, Russia and Romania, officers said.

CNN has reached out to the foreign ministries of those countries for comment.

Images from the scene of the crash show monks standing in the forest next to the cable car’s tracks. The tracks themselves are on a steep incline, and are parallel to a huge, winding set of steps.

One video shows a frayed, snapped cable, then a pool of blood next to some of the cable car’s structure.

Asanga Kiriwatta, a local resident, told Reuters that “the monks were thrown all over the place” in the aftermath of the accident.

“We rescued them with great difficulty. There were very few people around at that time,” he said.

Vijitha Herath, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, said that he was “shocked by the loss of venerable monks” in the “tragic accident,” offering his condolences to those affected in a post on X.

According to Na Uyana Monastery’s website, the complex is one of the oldest Buddhist forest monasteries in the country, dating back to the 3rd century BCE.

More than 200 monks live in the complex, the website says, while visitors are able to participate in meditation retreats and other spiritual events.

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