Tragedy Strikes Thailand as School Bus Inferno Leaves Dozens Feared Dead
In a devastating incident, a school bus carrying 38 children and six teachers to a science museum in northern Bangkok caught fire on Tuesday, leaving more than 20 people feared dead. The charred wreckage of the bus was recovered, with rescue workers struggling to identify the badly burned bodies of the victims.
According to Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, 21 people escaped the blaze, but 23 are still unaccounted for and likely to be dead. The bodies of the victims were so badly burned that officials have been unable to give a precise death toll, with identification taking days.
"It’s a terrible scene. Some of the bodies we rescued were very, very small. They must have been very young in age," said Piyalak Thinkaew, the leader of the rescue operation. "The kids’ instinct was to escape to the back so the bodies were there. The bodies are so badly charred that it’s hard to identify them."
The disaster began when one of the bus tires burst on the highway, causing the vehicle to crash into a barrier and triggering the inferno. Video footage from the scene showed flames engulfing the bus as it burned under an overpass, with huge clouds of dense black smoke billowing into the sky.
The victims were students from Wat Khao Phraya Sangkharam school in the northern province of Uthai Thani, who were on a field trip to the science museum. A video posted on the school’s Facebook page just hours before the tragedy shows the group of youngsters in orange uniform shirts stopping off at the ancient Thai capital of Ayyuthaya.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has pledged to pay for the survivors’ medical treatment and compensate the victims’ families. "As a mother, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the families of the injured and deceased," she wrote on Twitter.
The incident highlights the poor road safety record in Thailand, with unsafe vehicles and poor driving contributing to the high annual death toll. According to the World Health Organization, around 20,000 people are killed every year on the kingdom’s roads, with more than 50 people dying daily on average. The economic losses caused by traffic deaths and injuries amount to around $15.5 billion annually, more than three percent of GDP.
The rescue operation is ongoing, with authorities working to recover the remaining bodies and provide aid to the affected families.
