Six Myanmar migrant workers were killed and 30 more injured when the bus they were in crashed into a ditch in Tak province, Thailand, while travelling to Bangkok, the Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The ministry said in a statement that 51 Myanmar workers were aboard the ill-fated bus when it crashed in a roadside ditch late Monday.
“Twelve of 30 workers suffered serious injuries but none were life-threatening,” U San Maung Oo, labour attaché of the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok said Tuesday.
The victims were among 200 workers sent in four buses to work at an electronics factory in the Thai capital by the Golden Royal Mandalay Overseas Employment Agency under an agreement between the two countries.
One of the buses that was carrying 51 Myanmar women workers plunged into a roadside ditch after one of its wheels broke.
Myanmar Embassy officials in Bangkok said that two of its labour attachés went to the accident site to assist the victims.
The Myanmar military attaché and the Thai military commander in the region cancelled meetings and went to the accident area to help the workers.
The company that insured the buses has promised to pay 700,000 baht (US$22,241/K29.65 million) to the families of each of the six workers who died in the accident, according to to a local migrant rights group and Myanmar Embassy officials.
Labour attaché U San Maung Oo said they would delay sending more workers from Myanmar to prevent such accidents, as hundred of thousands of Myanmar migrant workers are now returning home for the Thingyan Festival.
He said that passenger vehicles are rushing from Mae Sot to Bangkok, without rest and without undergoing maintenance checks, to accommodate workers who want to go home to Myanmar for the Thingyan Festival as well as for new workers coming to Thailand.
He said there have been at least four vehicular accidents in the area recently. Fourteen Myanmar workers who were returning home for Thingyan luckily escaped from a van fire in the area on Monday.
March 30, 20 Myanmar workers died in a bus fire in Tak Province.
