Crane Collapse at Thai Rail Construction Site Derails Passenger Train, Killing 22
A crane collapsed onto a passenger train at a rail project in northeast Thailand, killing 22 people and injuring 80 others, prompting an investigation and halting rescue efforts over chemical leak concerns.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - Local authorities said the accident occurred on Wednesday at a construction site connected to a high-speed rail project in Nakhon Ratchasima province, northeast of Bangkok. A crane collapsed onto a passenger train, causing it to derail and catch fire.
Footage from the scene, verified by AFP, showed the crane’s broken structure resting on massive concrete pillars, with smoke rising from the wreckage of the train below. Live broadcasts by local media captured rescue workers racing to the site as a brightly coloured train lay tilted on its side.
Rescue teams worked to extract passengers trapped inside the derailed carriages. Local resident Mitr Intrpanya, 54, said he heard a loud noise at around 9:00 am.
“At around 9:00 am, I heard a loud noise, like something sliding down from above, followed by two explosions,” he said.
“When I went to see what had happened, I found the crane sitting on a passenger train with three carriages.
“The metal from the crane appeared to strike the middle of the second carriage, slicing it in half,” Mitr told AFP.
Thatchapon Chinnawong, the district police chief, told AFP that twenty-two people had been confirmed dead and eighty others injured.
“We are now asking the hospital to say how many people are in critical condition,” Thatchapon said.
Later, Thatchapon said authorities had paused rescue operations due to concerns over a chemical leak at the scene.
According to the Nakhon Ratchasima provincial public relations department, the train was travelling from Bangkok to Ubon Ratchathani province. Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said one hundred ninety-five people were on board the train at the time of the accident, adding that authorities were rushing to identify the deceased.
He ordered officials to determine the cause of the accident, according to an official statement.
The crash occurred at a construction site forming part of a $5.4 billion project backed by Beijing to build a high-speed rail network in Thailand. The project aims to connect Bangkok with Kunming in China via Laos by 2028, under China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
Thailand currently has around five thousand kilometres of railway, though the aging network has long pushed travellers toward road transport. Once completed, the six hundred-kilometre high-speed railway will allow Chinese-made trains to run from Bangkok to Nong Khai, on the Mekong River border with Laos, at speeds of up to 250 kilometres per hour.
Industrial and construction-related accidents have been frequent in Thailand, where weak enforcement of safety regulations has often resulted in deadly incidents. In 2023, a freight train killed eight people after hitting a pickup truck at a railway crossing in eastern Thailand. In 2020, a freight train struck a bus carrying passengers to a religious ceremony, killing at least eighteen people and injuring more than forty others.
As investigations begin into the cause of the crane collapse, the deadly derailment has once again drawn attention to safety risks surrounding major construction projects and Thailand’s long-troubled rail infrastructure.