BY Rosemary
A construction crane collapsed onto an elevated roadway near Bangkok on Thursday, killing two people, just one day after a separate crane accident in northeastern Thailand sent a passenger train off the tracks and left at least 32 people dead. The back-to-back disasters have intensified scrutiny of major infrastructure projects and prompted the government to take swift action against the companies involved.
The latest incident occurred Thursday morning in Samut Sakhon province, southwest of Bangkok, where a crane used in the construction of an expressway extension toppled onto a section of elevated road. The collapse crushed two vehicles beneath the debris, trapping occupants inside. Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn later confirmed that two people were killed in the accident.
The expressway project is part of an extension of Rama 2 Road, a critical transport artery linking Bangkok to southern Thailand. The construction site has long been notorious for accidents, including several fatal incidents over recent years, drawing repeated complaints from motorists and residents about safety standards.
The tragedy followed a far more devastating accident on Wednesday, when a crane collapsed onto a moving passenger train in Nakhon Ratchasima province. The impact caused the train to derail, killing at least 32 people and injuring nearly 70 others. Officials said about 171 passengers were believed to have been aboard the train’s three carriages at the time of the crash.
Authorities announced Thursday that the search for missing passengers had ended, after determining that three individuals initially listed as missing were likely not on board when the accident occurred. Among those killed were a South Korean man in his late 30s and a German national, according to statements from the respective foreign ministries.
The rail line involved in Wednesday’s disaster is part of a high-speed rail project linked to a broader plan to connect China with Southeast Asia under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. The project has already faced setbacks, including the collapse of a railway tunnel along the planned route in August 2024 that killed three workers.
Anan Phonimdaeng, acting governor of the State Railway of Thailand, said the rail project’s main contractor is Italian-Thai Development, with a Chinese company responsible for design and construction supervision. Transport Minister Phiphat said the same Thai firm, commonly known as Italthai, was also the lead contractor on the expressway project where Thursday’s crane collapse occurred.
The company issued statements following both accidents expressing condolences to the victims’ families and pledging cooperation with rescue efforts and official investigations.
Italthai has also been linked to another major construction disaster. The firm was a co-lead contractor on the State Audit Building in Bangkok, which collapsed while under construction during a powerful earthquake last March. That collapse killed about 100 people and represented the worst structural damage in Thailand from the quake, whose epicenter was in neighboring Myanmar.
In that case, prosecutors have indicted 23 individuals and companies, including Italthai’s president and a local director of its joint venture partner, China Railway No. 10. Charges include professional negligence causing death and document forgery.
The repeated involvement of the same firms, along with Chinese partners, in major infrastructure accidents has fueled public concern about oversight, safety enforcement and accountability. Several expressway extensions in and around Bangkok built by similar consortia have also experienced serious accidents, some of them fatal.
China’s ambassador to Thailand, Zhang Jianwei, met with Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on Thursday to express condolences over the railway disaster. Zhang pledged full cooperation and transparency in the investigation and emphasized the importance of the rail project to bilateral strategic cooperation.
Later Thursday, Anutin announced decisive measures following meetings with relevant government agencies. He said the Transport Ministry has been ordered to immediately terminate contracts with the contractors involved in both recent accidents. The companies will be blacklisted from future government projects and face full legal prosecution, he said.
Anutin also said the government will move quickly to appoint new contractors to complete unfinished projects. Funding for the transition will come from seizing performance bonds and bank guarantees posted by the terminated companies, while reserving the right to pursue additional civil claims to recover further costs.
An engineer by training and a former construction executive, Anutin said the government is also finalizing a new contractor “scorecard” system to track safety records and past performance. The regulation is expected to come into force by early February, in an effort to prevent similar tragedies and restore public confidence in large-scale infrastructure development.
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