BANGKOK (AP) — A construction crane collapsed onto an elevated road near Bangkok, killing two people on Thursday, a day after another crane fell onto a moving passenger train in northeastern Thailand and killed 32 people.
The twin tragedies led Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul to announce late Thursday that he would terminate the contracts of the contractors involved.
The work on an extension of the Rama 2 Road expressway — a major artery leading from Bangkok — has become notorious for construction accidents, some of them fatal.
The crane collapsed Thursday morning in Samut Sakhon province, trapping two vehicles in the wreckage.
Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said that two people had died.
Search ends for missing in rail accident
The search for survivors from Wednesday’s train derailment ended. Three passengers listed as missing were presumed to have gotten off the train earlier, officials announced. There were thought to have been 171 people had been aboard the train’s three carriages. Almost 70 were injured.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry reported that a South Korean man in his late 30s, was among the dead. Thailand's Foreign Ministry announced Thursday that a German national also died in the accident.
The high-speed rail project line on which the accident occurred is associated with the plan to connect China with Southeast Asia under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
In August 2024, a railway tunnel on the planned route, also in Nakhon Ratchasima, collapsed, killing three workers.
Anan Phonimdaeng, acting governor of the State Railway of Thailand, said the project’s contractor is Italian-Thai Development, with a Chinese company responsible for design and construction supervision.
Major Thai construction firm implicated in both accidents
Transport Minister Phiphat said Italthai was also the lead contractor on the highway project where Thursday's accident took place.
Italthai issued similar statements offering condolences and to assist in recovery and investigations in response to both accidents.
Italthai was also the co-lead contractor for the State Audit Building in Bangkok that collapsed while under construction last March during a major earthquake, killing about 100 people.
The quake's epicenter was in Myanmar, and the buildings's collapse represented the worst damage in Thailand.
Twenty-three individuals and companies have been indicted in that case, including Italthai's president and the local director for the company China Railway No. 10, the project’s joint venture partner. The charges include professional negligence causing death and document forgery.
The involvement of Chinese companies in these projects has also drawn attention, as has Italthai and Chinese companies’ involvement in the construction of several expressway extensions in and around Bangkok where several accidents, some fatal, have occurred.
Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jianwei expressed condolences over the railway project's crane collapse to Prime Minister Anutin on Thursday. He also pledged full cooperation and transparency in the investigation, and emphasized the project’s importance to bilateral strategic cooperation.
Thai leader says companies at fault will lose contracts
Anutin, after a Thursday meeting with the government agencies concerned, announced he has ordered the Transport Ministry to immediately terminate contracts with the contractors involved in the two recent major accidents. These companies will also be blacklisted and face full legal prosecution, he said.
The government would also take measures to find new contractors for unfinished projects and finance them by seizing performance bonds and bank guarantees from the terminated contractors, reserving the right to sue them for additional costs, said Anutin. He is an engineer by training and was an executive in another major construction firm before entering politics.
Anutin also said the government is finalizing a “scorecard” system to keep track of contractors’ performance records, with the regulation expected to be enforced by early February.
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Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.