CHAIYAPHUM - A police officer, his wife and teenage son were killed when their vehicle crashed head-on with a truck carrying chemicals in Muang district on Thursday night.
The fatal accident occurred around 9.30pm near a curve during a thunderstorm. Gusting winds uprooted several roadside trees and damaged more than 100 houses in Muang and Phu Khieo districts on Thursday night.
Power lines were torn down and some areas were blacked out.
The crash scene was near kilometre marker 113-114 on Highway 201, the Chaiyaphum-Sikhiu route, in tambon Nong Nasaeng, said Pol Lt Kantheera Charnpana, a deputy chief investigator at Muang police station.
Emergency units sent there found a black pickup with Bangkok licence plates crushed under the front of the 10-wheel truck.
The dead bodies of the pickup driver and two other people were inside the trapped wreck. It took rescuers two hours to free the bodies.
The three victims were all family. They were identified as Pol Snr Sgt Maj Boonma Leelamuang, 40, his wife Sawittri, 35, and their son Yanwut, 13. All were from Nakhon Ratchasima’s Kaeng Sanam Nang district.
The injured truck driver, Chakkraphan Thaicharoen, 29, was also trapped in the cabin of his vehicle, which was carrying tanks filled with chemicals. Several of the containers were thrown onto the road by the force of the crash. The injured driver was rushed to a nearby hospital.
The truck driver, whose condition improved during the day, told police he was transporting tanks containing chlorine to branches of the Provincial Waterworks Authority in Chaiyaphum and Loei provinces.
It was very dark when he arrived at the curve where the crash occurred. The wind was blowing strongly and visibility was poor.
Suddenly lights appeared in front of him and a vehicle rammed into his truck. It happened very quickly, Mr Chakkraphan said.
The black pickup lies crushed beneath the front of the 10-wheel truck after they collided in Chaiyaphum on Thursday night. (Photo by Makkawan Wannakul)