Bangkok - A double-decker tour bus taking Thai provincial health volunteers for a weekend seminar crashed Friday, killing 17 people, police said. Witnesses said they saw the bus zig-zag as if the driver had fallen asleep and then run off the road into trees at about 6 am, police Colonel Thakoon Netpukana said.
The accident occurred in the Plaipraya district of Krabi province, 600 kilometres south of Bangkok.
The bus was one of a convoy of 12 vehicles taking about 500 health volunteers from Samut Prakan province to Panyi Island in Phang Nga province for a seminar near the beach.
"It was lucky this accident occurred so early before schoolchildren were out on the road," Thakoon said in a telephone interview from Plaipraya.
Police charged the bus driver with carelessness leading to manslaughter.
