Four people were killed, two of them children, after a pickup truck was hit by a Yala-bound train in Muang district of Phatthalung on Sunday afternoon.
The accident occurred at a railway level crossing at Ban Khlong Trud in tambon Chaiburi. The pickup truck driven by Satian Jitboon, 56, was passing the rail crossing that did not have a barrier when the sprinter train No.41 collided with it and crashed it against a railway bridge about 200 metres away, killing him and three others on board.
The three are Satian’s wife, Nuward Chankate, 55, his seven-year-old nephew and eight-year-old niece.
The truck was torn into four pieces and fell into the water underneath the bridge, along with the bodies.
The crash broke steel plates, which are bolted on to the track, for about 100 metres and caused the first carriage of the train to derail.
Phatthalung railway officials sent buses to the scene to take the train passengers to their destinations.
The officials would wait for rescue workers to finish moving the bodies and clearing the wrecked pieces of the truck before salvaging the derailed carriage and repairing the damaged section of the track. The track is expected to reopen late Sunday night, authorities said.
Photo by Assawin Pakkawan
Photo by Assawin Pakkawan