A bus driver’s three-year-old son was killed in a horror crash last night when he took his family with him to pick up tourists at the airport.
Udomsak Thongorapglgasri, 40, had been driving the yellow double decker from the island of Phuket with his family onboard including wife Warangkul, 38, son Tamanoon and three-month-old daughter Napan.
The driver approached a junction where his coach collided with a pick-up truck before both smashed into power lines and a row of shops at 10pm in popular tourist destination Krabi.
The young son was killed at the scene – with the mother seen holding him in the ambulance – while the three-month-old girl was taken to hospital where she is now recovering. A 15-year-old bus conductor was also injured.
The pick-up truck driver Viroj Gitjagan, 48, was also killed at the scene while the two other passengers in his vehicle which flipped over were seriously injured and taken to hospital.
Deputy Inspector Panompon Banmat from the police station in the Ao Luek district where the crash happened said: ”At 10pm the police radio centre was informed that there was a car crash at the intersection of the market. I went to check with rescue staff in the area and found many injured.
”In the bus one person had died and four people were injured. In the pick-up truck one was dead and two passengers were injured.
”From the investigation it was found that the bus departed from Phuket to pick up tourists at Krabi International Airport.
”The driver took his family. Later the bus collided at an intersection with the truck. The vehicles hit a shop before colliding with a power pole. The officials will investigate again thoroughly.”
The crash comes just days after 18 domestic tourists were killed in Nakhon Ratchasima when their bus driver – later arrested and found to have been smoking meth hours earlier – lost control on a steep hill and ploughed into a tree.
The country’s roads are statistically the most deadly in the world – with 36 people per every 100,000 being killed in 2017, or an average of between 50 and 60 people a day.
