BANGKOK — A construction crane collapsed onto a busy road in Samut Sakhon province near Bangkok on Thursday, killing two people and injuring several others, officials said, coming one day after a separate crane accident in northeastern Thailand killed 32 people.
The latest Thailand crane collapse occurred on an elevated highway construction site, crushing at least two vehicles beneath massive metal sections and taking the lives of two motorists, local police and rescue workers confirmed.
Second deadly crane failure in two days
The incident follows a deadly crane collapse on Wednesday in Nakhon Ratchasima province, where a large construction crane fell onto a moving passenger train in the country’s northeast, causing a derailment that killed at least 32 people and injured dozens more.
That disaster was one of the worst rail accidents in recent Thai history and has been widely linked to weaknesses in construction safety oversight.
Details of the highway collapse
Thursday’s collapse occurred at a road project on the Rama II elevated expressway early in the morning. Police said the fallen crane crushed vehicles on the road below. Aside from the two confirmed deaths, authorities reported multiple injuries and said rescue operations were ongoing amid unstable debris at the scene.
Transport officials have not yet released the identities of the victims, and work at the site remains suspended while investigators collect evidence.
Backdrop of the train derailment
Wednesday’s crane failure had even more devastating consequences. A massive crane supporting construction of an elevated railway collapsed onto a Bangkok-to-Ubon Ratchathani passenger train, derailing carriages and killing at least 32, with dozens more wounded and several passengers missing.
That crash has sparked intense scrutiny of infrastructure safety standards and the oversight of major construction firms responsible for multiple projects across Thailand.
Safety concerns and scrutiny
The back-to-back nature of these accidents has renewed concerns about building safety protocols in Thailand’s rapidly expanding infrastructure sector. Officials have pledged investigations into both events and reviews of safety oversight practices.
Transport authorities and government leaders have not yet provided a unified statement on whether the same contractors or equipment failures link both collapses, but investigations are underway.
