A motorcycle taxi driver was killed and three foreign visitors hurt when a tour bus crashed into three vehicles waiting at a traffic light in Pattaya beach town of Chon Buri on Tuesday night.
The bus, carrying 14 Chinese tourists, was heading to Laem Bali Hai pier in Pattaya.
It ran into three vehicles - a car, a taxi and a motorcycle - at an intersection near Phra Tamnak intersection in tambon Nong Prue, Pattaya police said.
The impact killed motorcycle taxi driver Padet Wiangyangkung, 37, whose body was still underneath the stopped bus when police arrived at the scene after being summoned around 9pm.
Two Chinese tourists on board the bus and a Norwegian who was driving the car sustained head injuries.
Arlaeng Leeja, 20, a tour guide for the Chinese tourists, told police the bus driver shouted out that the brakes had failed while it was going down Phra Tamnak hill road to Laem Bali Hai. Then the bus crashed into the three vehicles waiting at the intersection.
Fallen tree
In Roi Et, a woman was killed and 15 other passengers were injured when an interprovincial passenger bus overturned as the driver tried to avoid a large fallen tree on the road during heavy rain in Kaset Wisai district early Wednesday morning.
The bus, heading from Bangkok to northeastern Roi Et province, plunged into a roadside ditch and overturned between kilometre makers 183 and 184 on Kaset Wisai-Phayakkhaphum Phisai Road, said Pol Maj Prasong Pansupa, chief investigator at Kaset Wisai.
The fallen tree had blocked one traffic lane. Fifteen passengers were trapped inside the bus when emergency units arrived, and were released. Five of them were badly injured. A woman, identified later as Kanyawee Sukhontha, 21, was found dead near the bus. She was believed to have been thrown from the bus by the impact.
Driver Kritsada Samartkul told police the fallen tree appeared suddenly in his headlights. It was blocking the lane. When he tried to avoid it, the bus left the rain-slicked road and ran into the ditch.
Police held him for possible legal action. The investigation was continuing.