The collapse of a highway construction crane killed two people near Bangkok yesterday, with a Thai minister saying the building firm was also involved in a crane failure the day before that left 32 dead.
Car dashcam footage showed the moment the massive crane fell yesterday, unleashing clouds of dust as well as rubble across the area as several vehicles pulled over or reversed to avoid falling debris.
Motorcycle-taxi driver Booncherd La-orium said he no longer felt safe driving in the suburb outside Bangkok.
Photo: AFP
“I had goosebumps just thinking about how risky it is to be here. It could have happened to me,” the 69-year-old said. “I still can’t get over yesterday’s incident, and this morning I heard another one happened again.”
Thai Minister of Transport Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn linked firm Italian-Thai Development to the country’s second deadly crane collapse in two days, local media reported.
The company was contracted to build a section of a China-backed high-speed rail project where another huge crane fell on Wednesday, in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, derailing a passenger train below and killing 32 of nearly 200 people on board.
Photo: AFP
“Yes, it is Italian-Thai. I still do not understand what happened,” Phiphat told local media yesterday.
“We have to find out the facts, whether it was an accident or something else,” he said, adding that two people were killed.
The company — one of Thailand’s biggest construction firms — has seen several deadly accidents at its sites in the past few years.
The crane that fell yesterday morning at the under-construction Rama II Expressway in Samut Sakhon Province, outside Bangkok, left two people dead, local police chief Sitthiporn Kasi said from the scene.
In other verified footage from the same vehicle as the dashcam, someone is heard saying: “I almost died... Please pull over first.”
Another person replies: “That’s okay now. It’s not falling further. It’s a crane collapse again in front of me.”
“That was close,” the first person says.
Construction work has been under way for years to expand the road’s capacity and reduce congestion, but the project has been beset by delays and fatalities, earning it the nickname “Death Road.”
Surachai Wongho, a 61-year-old retiree who drives on Rama II every day, said he is haunted by the thought that one day he could be hurt in an accident.
“It’s the same incident happening over and over again in Thailand. It’s time for the government to do something,” he said.
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