Seven foreign workers were killed when their pickup truck struck a power pole and plunged into a ditch while their driver was fleeing police in Nakhon Pathom.
The fatal accident occurred about 12.10am on Wednesday at a curve in front of Wat Koh Rat in tambon Bang Pla of Bang Len district.
Emergency responders called to the scene had to use flashlights to find the grey, new-model Isuzu pickup with Bangkok number plates. It finished up at the bottom of a dark, four-metre wide by two-metre-deep ditch in roadside scrub. There was a broken power pole nearby, police said.
Two bodies were found in the vehicle - one in the front seat and the other in the cargo bed -while five others were found in the ditch. There were no survivors.
Police said two of the crash victims were men and five were woman. The driver was among the dead. Rescuers found a temporary driving licence for a man named Aung Aung Oo, a Myanmar national in his twenties. The others were not identified but all were believed to be Myanmar nationals.
The victims' possessions were found floating in the ditch water, and included a mosquito net, a water bucket, kitchenware and 13,000 baht in cash, police said.
Bang Len police said a patrol inspecting the area had come across a covered pickup parked there. When they asked the driver to allow a search, he instead drove off at high speed, and they followed. The pursuit ended in tragedy.
The victims were likely workers travelling to jobs in another province, police said.
A witness, Chainarong Wongkaew, 28, told police he was fishing under a bridge and heard a speeding car pass across it overhead, and then the sound just suddenly ceased.
