At least 20 people were killed and more than 30 injured in Thailand yesterday when a freight train crashed into a bus taking passengers to a religious ceremony, officials said.
The morning collision, about 50km east of the capital, Bangkok, toppled the bus on its side and sheared off part of its roof.
Dozens of injured passengers were rushed to nearby medical facilities for treatment, provincial hospital director Sombat Chutimanukul said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Four are in critical condition and eight remain under observation” out of the 23 admitted to her hospital, she told reporters.
State Railway of Thailand Governor Nirut Maneephan confirmed the death toll at the site of the crash to reporters.
Footage shared by a government department showed the bus edging from the road onto train tracks before a blue cargo train slams into its side.
Early photographs taken by rescue workers showed gnarled metal and debris, with bodies lying by the tracks and people’s belongings scattered around the scene.
Rescue workers lifted the injured on stretchers into nearby parked ambulances, and a crane arrived early in the afternoon to lift the vehicle off the tracks so that police could better assess the carnage.
There were about 60 passengers in the chartered bus traveling from neighboring Samut Prakan Province to a temple in Chachoengsao Province, Chachoengsao Governor Maitree Tritilanond said.
They were planning to offer yellow robes to monks — a traditional ceremony held within a month of the end of Buddhist Lent, he told reporters.
Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha extended his condolences and instructed authorities to investigate the cause of the crash, a government spokesman said in a statement.
Such deadly accidents are common in Thailand, which regularly tops lists of the world’s most lethal roads, with speeding, drunk driving and weak law enforcement all contributing factors.
Thailand has the second-highest traffic fatality rate in the world, according to a 2018 WHO report.
Though a majority of the victims are motorcyclists, bus crashes involving groups of tourists and migrant workers often grab headlines.
Travel throughout the kingdom has been thrown into disarray this weekend by a storm hitting the region, leaving roads in poor condition and some provinces deluged in shin-high floods.
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