The bodies of 20 children and three teachers have been pulled from the charred shell of a bus after it erupted into flames on a field trip in Thailand.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?
The bus was returning the youngsters after a school trip to the north of the country when it caught fire on the outskirts of Bangkok, at around 12.38pm local time.
Dramatic footage from the scene shows flames engulfing the entire vehicle as it burned under an overpass, huge clouds of dense black smoke billowing into the sky, with firefighters trying to put out the inferno.
Witnesses say the bus’s front tyre burst causing it to crash into the concrete barrier which reportedly sparked the fire that soon engulfed the entire vehicle.
DRIVER FLED
Footage taken shortly after the fatal crash showed the driver attempting to extinguish the fire but he reportedly fled the scene, before eventually handing himself in 61 miles north of Bangkok, according to local media.
The ages of the children on board remains unclear, but the Wat Khao Phraya Sangkharam School in the Uthai Thani province caters for pupils between three and 15 years old.
READ ALSO – How Kanye West TOLD a woman to steal car with child inside
NUMBER OF SURVIVORS
Nineteen children and three teachers are reported to have survived.
Horrifying pictures from the scene showed their charred corpses in the burned-out vehicle.
Firemen took some of the children who were able to escape the blaze into a nearby building, where they were seen being counted.
The bus was running on compressed gas and the crash ignited its fuel tanks, a rescue worker said in footage broadcast on local TV.
