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dirtydog

54 Burmese job seekers suffocate in Ranong

Fifty-four job seekers from Burma suffocated in the back of a seafood truck in Ranong province while being smuggled to the Phuket.
An additional 47 workers survived the incident late Wednesday and alerted police.Twenty-one were hospitalized while the rest were detained for questioning.
When police arrived at the scene, they found that 54 of the Burmese were already dead in the packed container truck.
Of the victims, 37 were women and 17 were men.
Police were searching for the truck's driver, who had fled the scene, and members of the smuggling gang they believed arranged the trip.
Police blamed the driver for failing to turn on the air conditioning in the back of the truck.
The surviving workers told police they sneaked into Ranong province from Burma's Victoria Point by fishing boat Wednesday night and were then packed into a small container truck for a trip to Phuket.
But after two hours, the workers told police that many of them began falling sick because of poor ventilation in the truck.
The Burmese knocked to signal the driver about the problems, he stopped the vehicle, discovered the bodies and fled.
A local villager who found the truck alerted police at about 10pm.

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Loombucket

Bladdy hell! A nice thing for a villager to find on a hot night. Poor b*stards.

Pansodan

120 people in an incredibly small van, watch the pictures on Bangkok Post. Tragedy

Pansodan

The victims were among 121 people crammed inside a container that was six metres (20 feet) long and only 2.2 metres (seven feet) wide, said Colonel Kraithong Chanthongbai, commander of the local police station in the Thai border province of Ranong where the bodies were found late Wednesday.

blackgang

were the people legal migrants or were they illegal aliens coming into Thailand to work illegally?

buad hai

^Illegal migrants. Post says they supposedly paid 5K baht each to be smuggled in.

Pansodan

and the survivors- "were arrested"

Pansodan

Blackgang- find your post a bit cynical- why do you stress their legal status so much?

Mid

Matichon newspaper

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Thailand volunteer rescue workers collect the bodies of dead Myanmar migrant workers Thursday, April 10, 2008, from the back of a seafood van in Ranong, Thailand. Fifty-four migrant workers from Myanmar, most of them women, suffocated in the back of an unventilated seafood truck in southern Thailand while being smuggled to the popular resort island of Phuket, police said Thursday.
Associated Press

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Thetyim

Sorry but that is not air conditioning.
It is either a chiller or a freezer.
It recirculates the air, so no fresh air is let in.

Wallalai

What the matter, these people were treated worst than meat. And you are as usual in idiot.

Mid

Death of 54 Myanmar illegal labourers prompts Thai crackdown
Thu, 10 Apr 2008

Bangkok - Thai police promised Thursday to round up a human-trafficking gang responsible for the death of 54 illegal Myanmar labourers who suffocated while being transported in a container truck to the resort island of Phuket.

A 10-wheel container truck, usually used for transporting frozen fish, was found by police early Thursday, abandoned on a small road near Suksamlan village, about 450 kilometres south of Bangkok, with 120 Myanmar nationals inside, 54 of whom were dead.

"We know which human-trafficking gang is behind this incident and we will round up their network," said Ranong Police Chief Major General Apirak Hongthong.

The dead included 37 women and 17 men. Another 21 were hospitalized, and the remaining 46 were arrested by police for entering Thailand illegally.

Survivors told police they were from Victoria Point Island in Myanmar, and had boarded the truck in Ranong to be taken to Phuket and other provinces to look for work.

About half an hour after leaving Ranong, the Myanmar nationals, who were packed in so tightly that they could only stand up, contacted the truck driver by hand phone and complained of the heat and lack of oxygen.

When several of them fainted the driver finally stopped the vehicle and opened the door to the container. When he saw that several of the Burmese had died, he fled the scene.

The owner of the truck, who turned himself in, is expected to face charges, as will the driver, Apirak said.

The Ranong police chief admitted that human trafficking was common in the province, which neighbours Myanmar to the west.

Thailand has a huge population of illegal Myanmar labourers who are commonly employed on fishing trawlers, plantations and construction sites.

Although Thai authorities provide work papers for some of the Myanmar labourers, the vast majority work in the country illegally, subject to arrest and vulnerable to abuse by their employers.

earthtimes.org

The Gentleman Scamp

This smells a bit fishy, surely they would have alerted the driver by knocking before 54 people died.

Burmah must be really shit, worse than the Philippines - then again Ranong is not much better.

Disgusting - this is because they paid 4K each and the driver wanted to make as much money as possible with complete disregard for human life.

He should be shot.

Pansodan

That is a very good point! Although it wasn't obvious when reading the news the first time- you are absolutely right. Even the biggest technical idiot would at least think about that point before getting people into that truck. That changes the case from "accident" to a "homicide"

obsidian

sad///

Rdrokit

Really sad. They came to Thailand hoping to make some money and maybe send some back home to their families and now they are all dead. Was just watching the news on the T.V. They said each one paid 10,000 baht and they showed a picture of the driver who they are still searching for.

chitown

"Drivers" in Thailand always leave the scene.........

dirtydog

Police arrested the owner of the cold storage truck which was used to smuggle 121 Burmese, 54 of whom died from suffocation just two hours into their journey that started in Ranong province on late Wednesday.


Damrong Pussadee was arrested Thursday morning at his residence that doubled as a used-cars outlet in Ranong's Muang district.
Damrong admitted that the truck belonged to him and identified Suchon Boonpong as the driver of the ill-fated truck. Suchon fled when he saw the victims in the back of his truck.

It was not clear if Damrong admit to any wrong doing.

A senior police officer said that Damrong was just a middle man behind the human smuggling ring linked to the tragic incident late Wednesday.

He were allegedly paid Bt5,000 per each Burmese, which would mean that he would be receiving Bt500,000 per route.

Jet Gorgon

Ya, Thet, thanks for pointing out the fridge factor.
These poor people. Trying to escape to make a living. Truly tragic.

Whiteshiva

Sounds to me he knows quite a bit about human trafficking gangs - I wonder why he never took action before now.....

This being Thailand, and and especially considered the fact that the victims were 'just' Burmese, I am sure the people responsible for this tragedy will be fined several thousand baht, and told to behave in the future.

There are incidents like these, and the usual lack of effort from the authorities in bringing the perpetrators to justice (meaning real justice) that makes me wonder if Thailand really is where I want my kids to grow up.

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