Regional News
Vehicle Accident Victims Burned Alive as Witnesses Take Photo’s with Smartphones in Central Thailand
25 people were killed and several others were injured in a deadly collision between a passenger van and a pickup truck
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CHON BURI – The New Year brought in tragity in Chon Buri’s Ban Bung district on Monday when passenger van which was heading for Bangkok from Rayong province jumped the lane and collided headon with an incoming pickup truck bound for Rayong.
Rescue workers said that 14 people, including four men and 10 females, died in the Bangkok-Chanthaburi passenger van whereas 11 people, including five men and six women, in the ill-fated pickup truck were killed.
Witnesses said that several of the victims were trapped and burned alive in the two vehicles which caught fire following the collision.
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According to Thai PBS one of the witnesses Phipob Promkate, posted on his Facebook page that most of the witnesses did not bother to rush to the rescue of the victims trapped inside the burning vehicles but instead used their smartphones to take pictures of the incident.
He said “I got out of my car to help the injured, asking bystanders for a sling or rope to pull the vehicles apart but no one bothered, they just busily took pictures with their smartphones.
If we had helped pull the pickup truck from the van, some of the victims who were trapped in the truck might have survived.
I felt saddened for being unable to help. I still remember the woman who was trapped next to the driver. I was forced to stand there, listening to the painful screams of that woman. I was totally helpless.
Anyway, I thanked a man from a black D-Max pickup truck who tried to pull the pickup truck with the help of a towing belt which broke and thanked two men who helped pull a woman out if the truck.”
In response to Phipob’s post, one wrote that the witnesses did their best and offered condolences to the dead victims.
Source: Thai PBS
Photos from taken from bystanders Twitter and FaceBook
