PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN – Two people were killed and 13 others injured when their chartered van crashed into a roadside tree in Muang Prachuap Khiri Khan district early on Monday.
Police and emergency responders were called to the scene of the crash at kilometre markers 328/800 on Phetkasem Road in Huay Sai subdistrict about 5.30am.
They found an overturned grey Toyota van with Nakhon Si Thammarat licence plates off the side of the southern highway, and a knocked-down tree. The front of the van was severely damaged. The vehicle was carrying 15 people, including the 60-year-old driver Reeb Sanohsode, said Pol Lt Col Sombat Promsa-ard, an investigator at Khlong Warn police station.
The officer assumed the driver fell asleep at the wheel.
Two women passengers were dead in the wreckage. They were identified later as Sudarat Chonlatharn, 33, and Suikanda Islam, 54. Rescue workers found Mr Reeb and a passenger injured and trapped in the front seats and used a hydraulic cutting tool to extricate them. Mr Reeb was in critical condition.
Eleven other passengers received non-life threatening injuries, seven adults and four children aged between four and 13.
Pol Lt Col Sombat said the van was taking teachers, awarded students and their parents from religious schools attached to mosques in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat to attend a test and workshop at the Islamic Teachers Association in Nonthaburi on Thursday.
The van left Nonthaburi at 11pm on Sunday. All passengers were sleeping when the accident occurred. Shortly before the crash the driver stopped to rest at a petrol station in Kui Buri, which is adjacent to Muang Prachuap Khiri Khan district.