Seven people are dead and dozens more are injured following a freak accident in Sri Lanka when a race car hurtled off-course during a competition and rammed into a crowd of people standing by. “The accident occurred when the race car lost control and collided with a group of spectators,” police spokesman Nihal Thalduwa was quoted as saying by the Daily Mirror, adding that police were investigating. The wreck killed four race officials and three others, one of whom was reportedly an 8-year-old boy, Thalduwa said. Twenty more people were hospitalized, he added, and three of them had life-threatening injuries. It wasn’t clear whether the driver was among the deceased or the injured. After the accident, which occurred during the 17th of 24 planned racing events, the rest of the schedule was cancelled. Some 45,000 spectators had shown up to the festivities, which were organized by the Sri Lanka Army and Sri Lanka Automobile Sports and held at a military academy in a hillside town outside the island nation’s capital.
