The fire on a bus carrying Thai children on a school trip killed at least 23 people on a highway in the northern suburbs of Bangkok, police said, the worst road accident in ten years in this Asian country .
“We found 23 bodies inside the bus,” Trairong Phiwpan, head of the forensic bureau, told reporters after emergency services intervened to extricate the bodies from the charred carcass of the bus.
The fire, which would be the result of a puncture according to rescuers, ravaged the vehicle while it was transporting 38 children – from kindergarten to middle school – and six teachers on a school trip.
The victims’ bodies were so badly burned that it was not immediately possible to confirm the number of deaths, and DNA testing will be needed to identify the remains, authorities said. Roads are particularly dangerous in Thailand, with around 20,000 deaths per year.
On site, Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul had previously indicated that 21 people had managed to escape the blaze, with 23 others missing and probably dead.
Several hours after the accident, rescuers were still working around the wreck of the school bus.
“Some of the bodies found were very, very small. They must have been very young,” said Piyalak Thinkaew, the head of the rescuers, adding that the fire had started at the front of the bus.
“The children’s instinct was to escape through the back, so that’s where the bodies are. (…) The burns make it difficult to identify the victims,” he said. Some of the rescued children suffered very serious burns to their faces, mouths and eyes, doctors treating them told local media.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra visited the victims’ bedsides at the hospital.
“As a mother, I would like to express my most sincere condolences to the families of the injured and killed,” she reacted, specifying that the government would cover the victims’ medical costs.
– The driver on the run –
Police are searching for the bus driver, acting national police chief Kitrat Phanphet told reporters: “The driver is on the run, we will not wait for him to surrender. We will send a team to find again,” he assured.
The vehicle was part of a convoy of three buses, transporting children from a school in the province of Uthai Thani (north), for an outing to the science museum in Bangkok.
A video posted on the school’s Facebook account, a few hours before the accident, showed the group of children dressed in orange – wearing a uniform at school is compulsory in Thailand – on the site of the temples of ‘Ayutthaya.
The accident, which occurred around 12:30 p.m. (05:30 GMT), was caused by a puncture which caused the bus to hit a barrier, triggering the fire, according to rescuers.
Videos show flames engulfing the bus under an overpass, while clouds of black smoke rise into the sky.
Meechai Sa-ard, a motorcycle taxi driver, heard the sound of the accident a kilometer away. “There was smoke everywhere. Poor children,” he told AFP. “I was hoping that God would make it rain to put out the fire and that the children would survive.”
The tragedy took place near Rangsit, in the suburbs of Bangkok, on a busy highway linking the center of the capital to business areas in the north.
– Deadly roads –
Thailand is renowned for its accident-prone roads, due to faulty infrastructure, unsafe vehicles and poor driving practices: too high speed, non-compliance with signs.
Around 20,000 people die each year in road accidents, or more than fifty per day, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) for 2023.
Economic losses from road traffic-related deaths and injuries have been estimated at some 530 billion baht (14.7 billion euros) in 2022, or around 3% of the country’s gross domestic product.
In 2018, a bus fire killed 20 workers from Myanmar, and four years earlier, at least 30 people died when their bus fell off a mountain road into a ravine.
