Thailand school bus crash east of Bangkok kills at least 15 people

At least 15 people, including 13 children, have been killed after a bus carrying students on a trip to the seaside collided with a lorry in eastern Thailand.

Authorities say more than 45 others were injured in the pre-dawn accident in Prachinburi involving the double-decker bus and an 18-wheel truck.

About 60 students, aged around 10 to 14 years old, were heading to the resort city of Pattaya from the north-eastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima.

"Thirteen students and two teachers died - 11 of them at the scene - and more than 30 injured are in three nearby hospitals," police lieutenant Colonel Anukarn Thamvijarn said.

He says five of the injured were in a serious condition.

"The bus's brakes may have failed or the driver might have fallen asleep," he said.

The accident reportedly happened on a steep and winding stretch of highway.

Police are searching for the driver, who fled the scene.

Local media showed pictures of a row of bodies covered by sheets laid out by the side of the wreckage of the bus, whose top deck was crushed on one side.

The smash is the latest in a series of deadly accidents involving buses in Thailand, where roads are among the most dangerous in the world.

The accident happened on a narrow stretch of road that cannot be widened because it cuts through a national park, Nuttapong Boontob, from the non-profit Thailand Accident Research Center, said.

"The road is always busy with big trucks as it links the north-eastern region and the eastern seaboard where there are many industrial estates," he said.

Thailand has poor record on road deaths

Roughly 60 per cent of traffic accidents in Thailand are caused by human error, according to Mr Nuttapong, with poor road and vehicle conditions posing additional hazards.

Bus operators are required to provide seat belts but passengers are not legally obliged to use them.

A recent report by the World Health Organization found that the country saw some 38.1 road deaths per 100,000 people - behind only the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean and the South Pacific island of Niue.

That compares with an average of 18.5 in south-east Asia as a whole.

In December, dozens of people were killed when a bus carrying New Year travellers plunged off one of Thailand's highest bridges in the kingdom's northeast.

At least 20 people were killed in October when a tour bus carrying elderly Buddhist devotees fell into a ravine, also in the northeast.

Friday 28 February 2014

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