Double-decker bus slams into tree in Thailand, killing 14

A double-decker bus has smashed into a tree in southern Thailand, killing at least 14 people and injuring 32 others, police have said.

The long-distance coach was travelling from Bangkok to the country’s far south when it crashed at about 1am on Tuesday.

The bus was transporting 46 passengers from the capital’s Southern Bus Terminal to Nathawi district in Songkhla when it veered off a road in Prachuap Khiri Khan province.

Photos published in Thai media showed the front of the vehicle split in two, with the tree jammed into the chassis.

Transport Company, the state-owned bus operator, said in a statement that all of the injured were being treated in a hospital and the company was investigating the cause of the crash.

Police told the AFP news agency they were looking into whether the driver may not have had enough sleep and if the victims included any foreign nationals.

Thailand has one of the world’s highest road fatality rates, with about 20,000 people killed in traffic accidents each year, according to the World Health Organization.

In July, four people were killed and 34 others injured when their bus veered off a mountain road in the country’s northeastern Phu Sing district.In 2014, at least 15 people, most of them school students, were killed when their bus collided with an 18-wheeler truck in the eastern district of Prachinburi.