The fire which broke out at the Colombo Port recently was recorded by only 4 CCTV cameras located in the terminal, the Colombo Crimes Division informed court.

Submitting a report to the Colombo Additional Magistrate, the CCD stated that there are a total of 32 CCTV cameras at the terminal in question, however the fire was recorded only by 4 of them.

Footage of the incident were not clear due to technical faults in these 4 cameras, police said.

Harbour Police had recorded a statement from the electric engineer regarding the fire, which broke out at the inbound cargo warehouse CFS 1 at JCT terminal inside the Port of Colombo on May 24.

The engineer had declared that the fire erupted at 1.02 a.m. despite previous records stated that 12.36 a.m. was the time when the fire broke out.

Police further informed court that the fire was presumably an act of sabotage carried by a group or an individual.

Colombo Additional Magistrate Chandima Liyanage instructed the Colombo Crimes Division to conduct further inquiries into the fire and submit a report.  

Project Minister of Ports and Highways, Rohitha Abeygunawardena had recently revealed that the cargo terminal fire, which destroyed cargo worth over Rs.50 million, was caused by undeclared inflammable chemical cargo.

He stated that the company which had stored the cargo had not declared it as inflammable chemicals and that action would be taken against them.