In Thailand 25 young people would have died in a fire that broke out on board a bus carrying dozens of students and teachers on a school trip. The prime minister reported this Paetongtarn Shinawatra in a message of condolences to the families of the victims. «I learned about the fire on a bus carrying students from Uthai Thani which caused deaths and injuries. As a mother, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the families of the injured and deceased,” Paetongtarn wrote on X.
The Minister of Transport Suriya Jungrungreangkit Instead, he said the number of deaths was unclear, but 25 people were missing after the fire. «Early reports said that There were 44 people on board, 38 students and six teachers. As far as we know now, three teachers and 16 students left,” he told reporters. “For those who are still missing, we still don’t have clear ideas.”
The bus was carrying students from Uthai Thani province when a tire burst on a highway in a suburb north of Bangkok, causing the vehicle to crash into a barriera rescuer said in a video broadcast on local TV. Video footage from the scene showed flames engulfing the bus as it burned under an overpass, huge clouds of thick black smoke billowing into the sky. The fire was put out, but rescuers had to wait for the bus to cool before searching for bodies, one rescuer said.
Thailand has one of the worst road safety records in the world, with unsafe vehicles and poor driving contributing to the high annual number of deaths.