LAN SAK, Thailand (AP) — A small town in central Thailand prepared Thursday for a somber mass funeral for the 23 children and teachers killed in a horrific bus fire during a school trip.
Some residents and monks waited until midnight at Wat Khao Phraya Sangkharam, the Buddhist temple in Lan Sak town in Uthai Thani province, to receive the bodies of the dead returned from Bangkok. Also returning were relatives of the dead who went to the Thai capital to help identify the seriously burned victims.
The school the children attended is on the temple grounds, a common location for schools in much of rural Thailand.
In the school auditorium, florists arrived early to build a large display of white flowers in front of a row of coffins with portraits of the dead. An elderly woman cried in front of a photo of a 14-year-old boy before limping away, tears streaming down her face and her hands tightly clutching a black plastic bag. Family members placed food, snacks and drinks as offerings on the coffins – an act of respect that symbolically sent nourishment and blessings to those who died.
The afternoon funeral was to be attended by the head of Thailand’s Privy Council, representing the royal family. King Maha Vajiralongkorn has stated that a royal cremation ceremony for the victims will take place next week.
Six teachers and 39 primary school students were on the bus that caught fire on a highway in a Bangkok suburb on Tuesday. It spread so quickly that only 22 people were able to escape.
On social media, parents have expressed nervousness about sending children on school trips, but also expressed deep outrage over possible safety lapses.
Police investigated whether the fire was caused by negligence and filed several charges against the driver, including reckless driving and failing to stop to help others.
Police have not yet determined the cause, but say the driver reported a front tire failure and the vehicle then scraped a concrete highway barrier. The sparks from the friction could have caused highly flammable gas cylinders inside the bus to explode, police said.
There were eleven gas cylinders on the bus, but there was only a permit to install six. Many Thai vehicles use compressed natural gas as fuel.
The owner of the bus company had told public broadcaster ThaiPBS that the gas cylinders met safety standards.
Thailand’s Ministry of Land Transport carried out urgent inspections of all natural gas buses. The department will also improve its safety guidelines to require crisis management training for drivers and safety inspections when such vehicles are to be built on behalf of schools, said Seksom Akraphand, the agency’s deputy director general.
