The accident happened in the same area of the northern province where two Myanmar men were killed after a passenger van lost control and plunged into a ravine on August 7th last.
Three scholarship students died and three more were seriously injured on Tuesday morning when a passenger van crashed into a lorry in the early hours of the morning in Lampang.
Three of Thailand’s brightest students were killed early on Tuesday morning when the passenger van they were travelling in smashed into the rear of a truck on the road to Bangkok.
Accident occurred in the Ko Kha district of Lampang
The accident occurred in the Ko Kha district in the centre of the northern Thai province at approximately 1 am. There were 16 passengers in the van when it rear-ended the 10 wheel lorry on the road in front of it causing extensive damage and a complete collapse of the front of the vehicle.
Six students travelling to receive scholarships injured
In all, six students who were travelling from Lampang to Bangkok to be awarded scholarships were taken from the van wreckage very seriously injured. Three of them died later at Lampang Hospital in the Mueang district of the province. All the occupants of the van received injuries from the collision.
Travelling from a Lampang technological college
Police Major General Anucha Uamcharoen is the chief of police for Lampang. He said that the accident occurred on the Phahon Yothin road. The students in the passenger van were from Northern Mubankhru Technological College and were travelling from the Lamphun campus to the educational institution’s campus in Bangkok.
The van’s driver was named as Techinpotch Phothong
Witnesses to the 1 am accident
There were a number of witnesses to what happened. One of them was the driver of the lorry named as Somyot Thongsri. He told police that he was travelling on the left-hand side of the road and heard a disturbance as the passenger van crashed into his vehicle. He immediately pulled up to see what had caused the crash. He then notified the police and rescue services.
A young family were travelling behind the passenger van in a car. The mother, father and three sons were en route to Bangkok where the family were moving to live. The father of the family was named as Mr Somchai.
Family man said his wife and children were injured he swerved to avoid impact with the van
Somchai said that his wife and children had suffered injuries in the incident after he was forced to swerve in order to avoid impacting the crashed passenger van. This caused his car to hit the raised concrete intersection in the middle of the road.
August van crash in the same area of Lampang
In August, two men from Myanmar lost their lives in another passenger van crash again in the Ko Kha district of Lampang when a driver fell asleep and the van lost control.
Over a week later, nine Italian tourists travelling on a minibus were taken to Lampang Hospital with injuries after their vehicle slid off the road in wet conditions in the Mae Tha district of the province. One of the tourists, a woman, was reported to have been seriously injured.
Further reading:
10 Italian tourists injured in Lampang, one woman seriously, after a minibus slides off a wet road
