Bangkok bus driver arrested after horror fire kills 23 passengers on school trip

Police successful Thailand person arrested the operator of a bus that was carrying young students and teachers erstwhile it caught fire and killed 23 passengers.

The fearfulness blaze happened successful suburban Bangkok. Families arrived successful the superior connected Wednesday to assistance place their loved ones.

The autobus carrying six teachers and 39 students successful simple and inferior precocious schoolhouse was going from Uthai Thani province, astir 300 kilometers (186 miles) northbound of Bangkok, for a schoolhouse travel successful Ayutthaya and Nonthaburi provinces connected Tuesday.

The occurrence started portion the autobus was connected a road northbound of the superior and dispersed truthful rapidly galore were incapable to escape.

Trairong Phiwpan, caput of the constabulary forensic department, said 23 bodies were recovered from the bus. The betterment enactment and confirmation of the full dormant had been delayed earlier due to the fact that the burned vehicle, which was fueled with earthy gas, remained excessively blistery to participate for hours.

Three students are successful hospital, 2 of them were successful superior condition. A seven-year-old miss suffered burns connected her face, and a surgeon said doctors were doing their champion to effort to prevention her eyesight.

The families were driven from Uthai Thani successful vans to the forensic section astatine the Police General Hospital successful Bangkok connected Wednesday to supply their DNA samples for the recognition process. Kornchai Klaiklung, adjunct to the Royal Thai Police chief, told reporters the forensics squad was moving arsenic accelerated arsenic it could to place the victims.

The driver, identified by the constabulary arsenic Saman Chanput, surrendered connected Tuesday evening respective hours aft the fire. Police said they person charged him with reckless driving causing deaths and injuries, failing to halt to assistance others and failing to study the accident.

The operator told investigators helium was driving usually until the autobus mislaid equilibrium astatine its beforehand near tire, deed different car and scraped a factual road barrier, causing the sparks that ignited the blaze, Chayanont Meesati, lawman determination constabulary chief, told reporters.

The operator said helium ran to drawback a occurrence extinguisher from different autobus that was traveling for the aforesaid travel but helium could not enactment retired the fire, and ran distant due to the fact that helium panicked, Chayanont said.

Police said they are besides investigating whether the autobus institution followed each information standards.

In an interrogation with nationalist broadcaster Thai PBS, autobus institution proprietor Songwit Chinnaboot said the autobus was inspected for information doubly a twelvemonth arsenic required and that the state cylinders had passed the information standards. He besides said helium would compensate the victims’ families arsenic champion arsenic helium could.