Colombo, Jul 3 (IANS): Two people were killed in a fire that broke out on Wednesday morning in a row of houses where tea plantation workers live in central Sri Lanka, the police said.
Speaking to local media, police spokesman Nihal Thalduwa said the victims were a 60-year-old man and a 50-year-old woman who were living in the first house that caught on fire, Xinhua news agency reported.
The cause of the fire was an electricity leakage, according to the police. Three houses that estate workers live in were destroyed.
Most of Sri Lanka's estate workers live in housing provided by plantation companies.
The government has allocated 14 billion rupees (about $46 million) for people without homes in the plantations, a minister said in January this year.