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A construction crane has collapsed onto a moving train in Thailand, killing no less than 22 people and injuring around 80 others.
The train, carrying 195 passengers, derailed when the crane, used to construct an elevated highspeed railway, fell onto the moving train because it was traveling from Bangkok to Ubon Ratchathani province this morning.
Footage from the scene shows the crane’s broken structure resting on giant concrete pillars above the mangled wreckage of the overturned train.
Local police said there have been more bodies that had yet to be retrieved.
Mitr Intrpanya, 54, who was on the scene, described one among the carriages being torn in half by the impact.
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He said: ‘At around 9am, I heard a loud noise, like something sliding down from above, followed by two explosions.
‘Once I went to see what had happened, I discovered the crane sitting on a passenger train with three carriages.
‘The metal from the crane appeared to strike the center of the second carriage, slicing it in half.’
The accident happened at a construction site that is an element of a $5.4-billion project backed by Beijing to construct a high-speed rail network in Thailand.
It goals to attach Bangkok to Kunming in China via Laos by 2028 as a part of China’s vast ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure initiative.
Thatchapon Chinnawong, the district police chief, said 22 people had been confirmed dead and 80 more were injured.
‘We at the moment are asking the hospital to say what number of persons are in critical condition,’ Thatchapon said.
Thailand already has greater than 3,000 miles of railway however the run-down network has long driven people to favour travel by road.
Upon completion of the 370-mile high-speed railway, Chinese-made trains will run from Bangkok to Nong Khai, on the Mekong River border with Laos, at as much as 150mph.
Industrial and construction site accidents have long been common in Thailand, where lax enforcement of safety regulations often results in deadly incidents.
In 2023, a freight train killed eight people after it struck a pickup truck crossing railway tracks in eastern Thailand.
A freight train killed no less than 18 people and injured greater than 40 others in 2020 when it crashed right into a bus carrying passengers to a spiritual ceremony.
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