Two people were killed and eight other passengers injured when a van travelling from Bangkok to Si Sa Ket slammed into the rear of a 10-wheel truck on a highway in Buri Ram’s Nang Rong district in the early hours of Tuesday, police said.
Rescue workers help injured passengers from the damaged van after it crashed into the rear of a truck in Buri Ram about 3.30am on Jan 13. (Photo by Surachai Piragsa).
The 10-wheel truck, loaded with chickens, was about to make a U-turn at kilometre makers 109-110 in tambon Hua Thanon of Nang Rong district about 3.30am.
The van, carrying 11 people, ran into the back end of the truck, said Pol Lt Pittipol Phutthinathaweewong of Nang Rong police station.
The impact killed two people on board the van immediately, including driver, and injured eight others.
The dead bodies were trapped in the wreckage of the van until rescue workers could prise them out. The injured, seven women and one man, were rushed to a local hospital.
The dead included the van driver Charoen Supan, 45, and a 40-year-old woman passenger sitting in the front seat who had yet to be identified.
Truck driver Sangvarn Jiewcharoen, 45, told police he was delivering chickens to a farm in Chok Chai district of Nakhon Ratchasima when the van slammed into the rear of his vehicle at a U-turm. After the crash, he got out to help injured passengers and waited for police to arrive.
Pol Lt Pittipol said the van driver might have been speeding. He would question the passengers and other witnesses to establish the cause of the accident.