I asked my wife about the Saraburi bus accident. She said she doesn't live in Saraburi.
that just about sums it all up.
thais float around in bubbles of indifference, with little interest in the world beyond their soi.
compare the saraburi crash with the spanish train crash.
spain.
3 days of national mourning, hotels in the town offering free accommodation to relatives of the deceased and injured, visits by "important people" to the site, and a nationwide public outcry. investigation teams descending on to the site to try and find out what happened. these little things, individually unimportant, focus the minds, bring the public together and make it harder for the authorities to avoid the issues at stake.
saraburi
8 lines in the bangkok post, a paragraph in the thai press, and thats it.
within 12 hours of the saraburi bus crash someone had sent me pictures of scrap metal scavengers tearing the bus to bits and carting off anything of value. remember the lauda air crash in kanchanaburi where rescue workers couldnt get to the site because local scavengers were sifting through the luggage.