SAKON NAKHON: Eight vacationers heading to Rayong province were hurt after a pickup truck loaded with vegetables rear-ended another one, which then rammed into their van, causing it to hit a roadside tree in Phu Phan district in the early hours of Saturday.
The crash happened on Sakon Nakhon-Kalasin Road near Thongchai military camp, said Pol Capt Somchai Yotsaphon, a duty-officer at Phu Phan police station, who was reported at around 2am.
A van with Kalasin licence plates was found crashing into a tree. The people trapped inside were screaming for help when police and rescue workers arrived at the scene.
Eight people were retrieved from the wreckage, including a nine-year-old whose legs were trapped in the damaged console. Rescue workers had to cut open it to take her out. The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital.
Two damaged pickup trucks were found on the road. An unknown number of injured people on board the vehicles had been sent to a hospital.
Van driver Prasit Saenphuwa, 47, of Sakon Nakhon, who sustained minor injuries told police that he was driving the van to pick up his eight relatives from Kut Pak district of this northeastern province. They planned to go to Rayong province in the East for a vacation.
When his van arrived at the scene, he saw a Toyota Vigo pickup truck in the middle of the road, preparing to turn to an alley in the opposite direction. Suddenly, another pickup truck loaded with vegetables rear-ended the first one.
The force of the crash caused the first pickup truck to crash into the van, which later rammed into a tree, said the van driver.
Police were gathering further evidence to find the cause of the crash.
One of two pickup trucks involving in a crash skids off a road in Phu Phan district, Sakon Nakhon, in the early hours of Saturday. (Photo by Pratuan Kajonvuthinun)