A bus carrying dozens of major faculty kids has crashed and caught fireplace simply exterior the Thai capital of Bangkok.
Sixteen kids and three academics are reported to have escaped, however 22 pupils and three academics are nonetheless unaccounted for, in line with the nation’s transport minister.
Thailand’s prime minister stated the accident resulted in “deaths and accidents” – however the actual variety of fatalities has not but been confirmed.
Images present the bus fully destroyed by the fireplace. Investigators are stated to have been unable to enter the automobile due to the warmth, in line with native media.
Eight of the 19 individuals who managed to flee had been despatched to hospital for therapy, a well being ministry official stated.
The bus was one in all three that had been carrying kids and academics getting back from a college area journey within the northern province of Uthai Thani.
Transport Minister Suriyahe Juangroongruangkit stated the bus was powered by “extraordinarily dangerous” compressed pure gasoline.
“This can be a very tragic incident,” Mr Suriyahe advised reporters on the scene.
“The ministry should discover a measure… if doable, for passenger automobiles like this to be banned from utilizing the sort of gas as a result of it’s extraordinarily dangerous.”
Thailand’s prime minister, in the meantime, has ordered ministers to go to the scene.
“As a mom, I want to categorical my deepest regrets to the households of these killed,” Paetongtarn Shinawatra stated.
“The federal government will likely be accountable for all of the medical prices and the compensation for these killed,” she added.
Piyalak Thinkaew, who’s main the search, stated the our bodies of these killed had been so badly burned, it was onerous to determine them.
“A few of the our bodies we discovered had been very, very small,” he advised reporters on the scene, including that the fireplace began on the entrance of the bus.
“The children’ intuition was to flee to the again so the our bodies had been there,” he stated.
The bus was travelling on a freeway into Bangkok when a tyre burst, sending it crashing right into a barrier, a rescue employee stated in footage broadcast on native tv.
Video footage from the scene confirmed flames engulfing the bus because it burned beneath an overpass, big clouds of dense black smoke billowing into the sky.
The motive force has fled the positioning of the crash however authorities are assured he will likely be tracked down, in line with Thailand’s Inside Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, who spoke to reporters on the scene.
The ages of the youngsters on board stay unclear, however the faculty has pupils between three and 15 years previous.
Thailand has one of many worst highway security information on the earth, with unsafe automobiles and poor driving contributing to roughly 20,000 fatalities a yr.
