The Yattalgoda train crash was an accident on a Sri Lankan rail line near the town of Kurunegala on 19 August 2001.
On the day of the accident, the train was grossly overcrowded, with hundreds of people clinging to the roof and sideboards because there was no room inside.
The train was running over a newly repaired and replaced section of track at high speed, when the engine suddenly derailed at a bend, dragging three coaches with it.
Fifteen people were killed in the crash, mostly among those who had been hanging onto the running boards and had been crushed by the falling train carriages.
The accident was reported to be the result of the newly laid track, the gravel base of which had not had a chance to settle and harden through the passage of trains overhead.