20 children and three adults die in Thailand school bus fire

THAILAND: Some 20 children and three teachers died in a school bus fire just outside of Bangkok on Tuesday.

According to witnesses, the bus had crashed into a concrete barrier dividing the highway just north of Bangkok when the front tyre burst. The bus then caught fire, and the passengers could not get out.

19 children and three teachers have survived, with 16 of them in hospital with serious injuries.

According to a BBC report, the bus was returning from Bangkok after a school trip to the northern part of the country. Footage of the scene showed the bus engulfed in flames underneath an overpass with dense black smoke coming out.

Rescuers confirm 25 lost, 23 dead on fire bus, 2 others taken to hospital in the area. 😢 🙏🏽

#TheStandardNews#ไฟไหม้รถบัส pic.twitter.com/OpwfewiXhl

— Olivia C (@GemFotC) October 1, 2024

Transport minister Suriyahe Juangroongruangkit said the bus was powered by extremely risky compressed natural gas.

“This is a very tragic incident. The ministry must find a measure… if possible, for passenger vehicles like this to be banned from using this type of fuel because it’s extremely risky.”

Search party head Piyalak Thinkaew said it was difficult to identify the bodies: “Some of the bodies we found were very, very small. The fire started at the front of the bus. The kids’ instinct was to escape to the back, so the bodies were there.”

Forensics reported that 23 bodies had been found, 11 male and seven female and for the remaining five, the gender could not be identified as they were burnt so badly.

The school was for children between three and 15 years old, so the ages of the victims were estimated to be within this age range. Thailand’s deputy prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, said an investigation was ongoing.

“We have to investigate the trace of driving from the tyre marks, the burning trace and CCTV footage,” he explained.

According to the World Health Organisation, Thailand’s roads are ranked the second most dangerous in the world after Libya. Bad driving and unsafe vehicles result in some 20,000 deaths on the road annually.

Opinions are mixed as to why a generally peaceful country would suffer a lot of fatalities on the road, and road rage and speeding seem to be a problem.

US-based Asia Injury Prevention Foundation country director Ratana Winther said, “Thailand has beautiful roads. And people tend to go very fast. So the number one killer is speed.”

This writer feels that one solution would perhaps be to limit passengers in multi-purpose vehicles and vans, which are usually over-packed with passengers way above their capacity, resulting in fatalities even with ordinary fender-benders.