Relatives claim bodies of Myanmar workers killed in van fire

Relatives of some of the 13 Myanmar workers who were killed in a fiery van accident in Sing Buri early on Friday were in Bangkok yesterday (November 25) to claim the bodies.

The Police Hospital’s Forensic Medicine Institute opened a room on the first floor to provide assistance to the relatives. The 13 workers were killed along with a Thai driver when the van burst into flames after it crashed into the rear of a truck in Sing Buri.

Yorin, one of the relatives from Myanmar, said he came to contact police to retrieve the body of Unai, one of the killed workers.

Yorin said he learned of the accident through social media, after which he tried but failed to contact his relative. Unai has just visited his father on November 10 and was taking the van to a rubber plantation in Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Pran Buri district, where he was to be hired as a rubber-tapping worker. Pol Colonel Supichai Limsiwawong, a doctor of the Forensic Medicine Institute, said doctors had finished the autopsies and found that they were seven men and seven women.

He said 11 of them died of suffocation from fumes and three from severe injuries from the impact of the crash. So far, the authorities had learned the name of one victim, Pathomphan Phanpol. He said if relatives of the victims came forward to claim the bodies, the officials would need two days to match the DNA samples. However, they would have to bring along the person’s next-of-kin, such as parents, brothers, sisters or children.

Pol Colonel Wathee Assawutmangkool, a scientist at the institute, said relatives could send their DNA samples to the institute via the Myanmar embassy and the process would take about one month to complete.

STORY: The Nation