TOPSHOT - A relative (C) of a student who died in a bus fire covers the eyes of a young relative who was travelling on a separate bus on the same school trip as they walk past the burnt bus wreckage on the outskirts of Bangkok on October 1, 2024. A devastating fire tore through a Thai bus carrying 44 students and teachers on a school trip on October 1, officials said, with up to 25 feared dead. (Photo by Manan VATSYAYANA / AFP)
Thai police have arrested the driver of a bus carrying students and teachers that caught fire and killed 23 in suburban Bangkok, as families arrived in the capital to help identify their loved ones.T
he bus carrying six teachers and 39 students in elementary and junior high school was travelling from Uthai Thani province, 300km north of Bangkok, for a school trip in Ayutthaya and Nonthaburi provinces on Tuesday.
The fire started while the bus was on a highway north of the capital and spread so quickly that many were unable to escape.
Trairong Phiwpan, head of the police forensic department, said 23 bodies were recovered from the bus. The recovery work and confirmation of the total dead had been delayed because the burned vehicle, which was fuelled with natural gas, remained too hot to enter for hours.
The families were driven from Uthai Thani in vans to the the forensic department at the Police General Hospital in Bangkok yesterday to provide their DNA samples for the identification process.
Kornchai Klaiklung, assistant to the Royal Thai Police chief, told reporters the forensics team was working as fast as it could to identify the victims.
The driver, identified by the police as Saman Chanput, surrendered on Tuesday evening several hours after the fire.
Police said they had charged him with reckless driving causing deaths and injuries, failing to stop to help others and failing to report the accident.
The driver told investigators he was driving normally until the bus lost balance at its front left tyre, hit another car and scraped a concrete highway barrier, causing the sparks that ignited the blaze, Chayanont Meesati, deputy regional police chief, told reporters.
The driver said he ran to grab a fire extinguisher from another bus that was travelling for the same trip but he could not put out the fire and ran away because he panicked, Chayanont said.
Police said they were also investigating whether the bus company followed all safety standards.
In an interview with public broadcaster Thai PBS, bus company owner Songwit Chinnaboot said the bus was inspected for safety twice a year as required and that the gas cylinders had passed the safety standards. He also said he would compensate the victims’ families as best as he could.
Three students were hospitalised, with two of them in serious condition. A seven-year-old girl suffered burns on her face and a surgeon said doctors were doing their best to try to save her eyesight. — AP
