Three women heading to a meditation session were killed after a speeding pickup truck and their car collided head-on in Chon Buri’s Sattahip district on Saturday night, police said.
The pickup truck driver and another woman on board the vehicle were badly injured in the crash that took place at kilometre maker 164 on Sukhumvit Road in tambon Bang Sareh, Pol Lt Col Wisit Chanthanalikhit, a duty officer at Sattahip police station said.
Police and rescue workers were alerted at 9.30pm and rushed to the scene where they found a badly damaged Toyota car with a Chon Buri licence plate. Trapped inside the wreckage were the bodies of three women, all wearing white clothes for meditation, Thai media reported on Sunday.
The victims were later identified as driver Wan-anong Sirisap, 46, of Chon Buri’s Bang Lamung district, Pranom Suwannasri, 63, of Bang Lamung, and a 50-year-old woman identified only as Thongsai.
About five metres away from the car, police found a four-door pickup truck with a Bangkok licence plate that was badly damaged in the front.
Driver Pakphum Pinitkarn, 30, and Supaporn Thiamsuwan, 21, were badly injured and taken to a nearby hospital.
Sarawut Thirasak, 31, who witnessed the accident, told police he saw the pickup truck, which was travelling at high speed, swerve into the opposite lane and crash head-on with the car that was following behind his vehicle.
Pol Lt Col Wisit said Mr Pakphum would be asked to undergo an alcohol blood test and would be charged with reckless driving, causing death and injury.
Reports said the three dead women were heading to a meditation session at a temple in Bang Lamung.