She said an eight percent decrease in the number of patients admitted to the Accident Service of the Colombo National Hospital from April 12 to 16 was witnessed but the number of road accidents had increased by 17 percent compared to the previous year.

De Soysa said around 938 patients had sought treatment at the accident service during the season while around 430 patients had been admitted. Around 139 patients were transferred from other hospitals to the Colombo National Hospital, she said.

De Soysa said the Accident Service recorded around 226 road accidents, 159 domestic accidents, 212 fall accidents, 41 work place accidents, 98 violence-related accidents, 31 sports accidents and five firecracker injuries during the festive season.

"The number of all other accidents reported during the Sinhala and Tamil New Year except road accidents have decreased when compared with the same period last year. Firecracker accidents had decreased by 44 percent compared to the corresponding period last year, while the number of domestic accidents increased by six percent," she said.

The police launched a special island wide operation on April 9 to nab drunk drivers which is scheduled to be continued until the end of the Sinhala and Hindu New Year celebrations on April 20. Under this programme, the police nabbed over 1,000 drunk drivers including 569 motorcyclists, 333 three- wheel drivers, 52 car drivers, 30 lorry drivers and 30 van drivers. (CDN)