Bangkok bus driver arrested after horror fire kills 23 passengers on school trip
The bus was carrying six teachers and 39 students in elementary and junior high school
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Police in Thailand have arrested the driver of a bus that was carrying young students and teachers when it caught fire and killed 23 passengers.
The horror blaze happened in suburban Bangkok. Families arrived in the capital on Wednesday to help identify their loved ones.
The bus carrying six teachers and 39 students in elementary and junior high school was going from Uthai Thani province, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) 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 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 earlier because the burned vehicle, which was fueled with natural gas, remained too hot to enter for hours.
Three students are in hospital, two of them were 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.
The families were driven from Uthai Thani in vans to the forensic department at the Police General Hospital in Bangkok on Wednesday 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 have 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 tire, 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 traveling for the same trip but he could not put out the fire, and ran away because he panicked, Chayanont said.
Police said they are 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.