BANGKOK (AP) - A fire on a double-decker bus carrying migrant workers killed 20 people early Friday a week after another high death toll showed the continuing dangers of Thailand's roads. The accident took place at 1:25am in the northwestern province of Tak which borders Myanmar, a source of much of Thailand’s huge migrant labour force. Ye Min, a member of the Aid Alliance Committee for Myanmar Workers (ACC), a Bangkok-based group that advocates for the rights of migrant workers, confirmed that the bus was carrying 47 people. "The driver said he saw fire breaking out from the middle of the bus, which then spread quickly," Kritkanok Dan-udom, the chief of Maetor district police station, told Reuters. Thailand has the second highest road traffic fatality rate in the world after Libya, at 36 per 100,000 with an annual estimate of more than 24,000 or 66 deaths every day, according to the World Health Organization.
A bus carrying migrant workers from Myanmar catches fire near Bangkok, Thailand, killing twenty people and injuring one other.