320 killed in road accidents during festival
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A total of 3,129 road accidents occurred during the seven Songkran "dangerous days", killing 320 people, Interior Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit announced Wednesday.
Yongyuth, the director of the Road Safety Centre, said the seven-day period from April 11 to 17 ended with 3,320 people being injured in the road accidents.
He said the period saw a lower number of accidents compared with the same period last year but with an 18.08 per cent increase in fatalities.
On Tuesday alone, 257 accidents occurred, killing 38 people and injuring 261 others.
At the end of the seven-day monitoring period for road accidents, six provinces were found to have suffered no fatalities. They were Nakhon Phanom, Trat, Trang, Pattani, Ranong and Satun.
Yongyuth said Chiang Rai had the highest number of road accidents with 125 accidents occurring during the seven-day period. Surat Thani had the highest fatalities with 13 people killed.
The interior minister said drunk driving was the biggest cause of the accidents – 39.21 per cent of the accidents were caused by drunk driving. Violation of the speed limit was the second cause or 21.57 per cent.
Wibul Sanguanpong, the director-general of the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department, said he would coordinate with the seven death-free provinces and study the measures they had used to put forward as a role model for other provinces to try to prevent more fatalities next time.
