NAKHON SI THAMMARAT - Two racing trailer-trucks are being blamed for an accident that clamed the lives of a tour bus driver and one passenger, and hospitalised 16 other passengers, on a highway in Chulaborn district on Wednesday morning.
The bus driver and one passenger were killed, and 16 passengers injured. Earlier reports put the figure at 20 injured.
The accident occurred about 4.30am on the South-bound side of Asia Highway 41 near Moo 1 village in tambon Thung Pho, between kilometre markers 320 and 321.
The 18-wheel trailer truck, loaded with cement, was heading South when it ran off the highway and into the ditch in the road median, but part of the trailer still projected out onto roadway.
The tour bus, bound from Bangkok to Yala's Betong district, was following immediately behind and crashed into the trailer truck's rear end, before also running into the ditch.
Bus driver Pinai Chaisriya, 40, and an unidentified male passenger died in the accident. Sixteen other passengers were also injured. They were admitted to Ron Phibun and Chulabhorn hospitals.
The truck driver, who was not identified by police, was also seriously injured and admitted to hospital.
Police investigators said later that the drivers of two 18-wheel trailer trucks, one with a Yala licence plate and the other a Songkhla plate, had been constantly overtaking each other before the accident.
One of them finally hit the other, causing it to run off the highway and into the ditch. The tour bus then rammed into the protruding rear of the trailer.
The trailer truck cab rests in the ditch, the trailer sticking out into the roadway, on Highway 41 in Nakhon Si Thammarat's Chulabhorn district. A tour bus following behind ran into the trailer. (Photo by Nujaree Raekrun)
The damaged tour bus lies in a median strip ditch after running into the rear of a crashed semi-trailer on the southern highway in Nakhon Si Thammarat on Wednesday morning. The bus driver and one passenger died and 16 others were injured. (Photo by Nujaree Raekrun)