A child drove his parents’ pickup truck into a group of Buddhist monks on a pilgrimage in northeastern Thailand on Thursday, police said.
What do we know about the incident?
Mukdahan province governor Vorayan Boonrat said five people were killed at the scene and three others died in hospital, while another 14 were injured.
Local police said the boy is in custody and the cause of the accident is being investigated. He said the monks saw the vehicle lose control before sliding off the road and crashing into the group.
where did it happen?
About 600 kilometers (about 375 miles) northeast of the capital Bangkok, a group of 35 monks and five lay followers were walking along a road on a pilgrimage.
Mukdahan province is in Isan, a rural area of the Mekong Delta on the border with Laos that is Thailand’s poorest region.
Home to approximately 350,000 people, Mukdahan is one of Thailand’s smaller, less populated and less densely populated provinces.
How dangerous are Thai roads?
Thailand’s reputation for road safety has improved significantly over the years, but its roads remain some of the most dangerous in the world.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Thailand ranks ninth out of 175 countries in terms of road traffic deaths.
In 2021, the UN health body recorded more than 18,200 deaths due to road traffic incidents, with about 50 deaths per day.
While highways and major roads tend to be fairly well maintained and paved, standards can drop significantly on more rural and shorter routes.
Similarly, the road network is used by all types of vehicles of different ages, sometimes in urgent need of maintenance or used to carry heavy loads or larger numbers of people than the manufacturers expect.
According to Thai government data for 2024, About 20 people per 100,000 died in road traffic incidents.. This is a considerable improvement on the figures of a few years ago, but more than six times the German figure of just three people per 100,000.
In May, at least eight people died in a collision at a rail crossing in the capital Bangkok.
Edited by: Carl Sexton
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