"We escaped only seven minutes before building collapsed," son of Kandy building owner

A former Basnayake Nilame who owned the building that collapsed in Kandy claiming the lives of three persons including an infant said today that he left the building only after it started crumbling and not well before it collapsed.

 Mr Anura Lewke told journalists in Kandy, in contrast to reports that he fled the area, he had only moved to an adjoining house when he was alerted by a neighbour that his house was collapsing.

“We heard some sounds and when we came out we noticed that the neighbours were flashing torches and staring at our place. It is only then we escaped from the house”, he told journalists today.

However, earlier reports said that he had fled the home with the family members and the pet dogs in the early hours before the building collapsed at around 5 a.m.

Mr Lewke said that his daughter was studying for the A/L exam and they had been awake until around 1.30 am before they had gone to sleep.

He said that contrary to reports that he escaped with the pet dogs,  the dogs were found hiding under a culvert around 1.30 in the afternoon by the STF.

Mr Lewke’s son explaining the incident said they heard sounds and soon after the neighbours alerted them they all got into the vehicle and escaped from the area.

“When I reversed the vehicle onto the road there was a gap between the garage and the road. I managed to drive away and then called the Kandy police and informed them of the incident. We then saw the building collapsing. It was only a gap of seven minutes from the time we left the home and the time it collapsed”, the son explained.

Mr Lewke claimed that all approvals had been taken for the construction of the building in 2006.

However, according to the initial observations by the National Building Research Organisation officials it appeared that it was not a landslide, but the building had collapsed as the structure was too heavy for the soil in the location.

However, they are due to submit a full report to the District Secretary on the incident today.

Meanwhile the postmortems of the family members who died of the incident are due to take place today (21).

They were identified as Chamila Prasad (35), his wife Achala Ekanayake (32) and their one-and-a-half-months- old child Onella. Mr Prasad was a businessman while Ms Achala was a lawyer and a lecturer.