BANGKOK: Thai police have arrested the driver of a bus carrying young students and teachers that caught fire and killed 23 in suburban Bangkok, as families arrived in the capital on Wednesday (Oct 2) to help identify their loved ones.
The bus carrying six teachers and 39 students in elementary and junior high school was travelling from Uthai Thani province, about 300km north of Bangkok, for a school trip in Ayutthaya and Nonthaburi provinces on Tuesday.
The fire started while the bus was on a highway north of the capital and spread so quickly that many were unable to escape.
Trairong Phiwpan, head of the police forensic department, said 23 bodies were recovered from the bus. The recovery work and confirmation of the total dead had been delayed earlier because the burned vehicle, which was fuelled with natural gas, remained too hot to enter for hours.
The families were driven from Uthai Thani in vans to the forensic department at the Police General Hospital in Bangkok on Wednesday to provide their DNA samples for the identification process.
Kornchai Klaiklung, assistant to the Royal Thai Police chief, told reporters the forensics team was working as fast as it could to identify the victims.
