An injured Swedish driver was helped from his burning car after crashing into a roadside signpost in Phuket on Sunday evening.

Police said the accident occurred about 5.30pm.

Police called to the scene found an MG car on fire. The area was cordoned off before a fire engine arrived. It took 20 minutes to extinguish the flames.

The car driver was identified later as Christoffer Mattias Hans Ottoson, a 47-year-old Swedish national. He was helped from the crashed car by a passer-by and taken to hospital. He had a broken right arm and was bleeding from the nose.

Phan Faikaew, 53, who helped the driver, said the car veered off the road and hit the signpost. He saw flames coming from underneath the car and hurried to help the injured driver escape.

He collected documents and money from the car and gave them to the driver, who was injured but still conscious.

After he helped the man from the car, it went up in flames and was destroyed, he added.