KANCHANABURI — Two people and their dogs were killed and three others, including a village head, narrowly escaped death in a crash involving two pickup trucks in Tha Maka district in the early hours of Friday.
The accident took place on Liab Khlong Chonprathan-Kampaeng Saen Road in tambon Yang Muang around 12.30am, said Pol Capt Kitti Wisetsing, a duty officer at Lukkae police station in Tha Maka district.
Police and rescue workers rushed to the scene and found a pickup truck with a Nakhon Pathom licence plate plunged into an irrigation canal. Two people and a dog were found dead inside the wreckage of the vehicle. The dead victims were identified as Seksan Sae Eua, 43, who was the driver, and his wife Buppa Chuchartton, 26.
Another pickup truck with a Bangkok licence plate was found in the same canal, about 200 metres away. Three people on board, including the driver, were injured.
Driver Chuchai Khanthachot, a village head of tambon Jarakhae Puek in Kanchanaburi’s Dan Makhamtei district who was slightly injured, told police that he, his wife Rattana, 44, and relative Buncherd Thianthong, 55, were on the way back from a funeral rite in Nakhon Pathom when the pickup truck, driven by Mr Seksan, suddenly cut in front of his vehicle on the road.
He tried to brake, but failed. His vehicle slammed into the coming pickup truck. The impact of the crash caused the two vehicles to plunge into the canal, said the village head.
Before his vehicle sank, he used his pistol to fire shots into the windscreen of his vehicle. He then escaped through the shattered windscreen and helped pull his wife and the relative out of the sinking vehicle.
Police were investigating.