Four of the eight victims killed in last weekend’s tragic train-bus collision on a railway crossing in Bangkok have now been formally identified, with their families receiving the bodies for funeral rites.
The verification process required forensic confirmation from relatives because the bodies were so badly burned when a massive fire engulfed the bus following the collision on the Makkasan railway crossing on Asoke-Din Daeng Road.
Thanatpipat Khiaowijit, a 21-year-old third-year information technology student at Silpakorn University in Nakhon Pathom, was among the victims. His father, Santi, told reporters after receiving his son’s remains that he had been on his way to meet friends near the Phatthanakan intersection on the day of the accident.
“My son was only three bus stops away from his destination when the tragedy occurred,” he said.
Santi said the family was almost immediately certain one of the victims was their son because he shared a location-tracking system with friends and relatives and the signal disappeared at almost exactly the same time as the crash.
“My son was still very young. He was due to graduate next year and dreamed of becoming an application programmer. He still had a long future ahead of him,” his father lamented.
“If you ask whether any compensation could ever offset this loss, I can say it never could be. Even if someone offered me five million baht in return for my son’s life, I would never accept it. He had a future ahead of him and he was the most precious thing to our family,” he said.
Another victim was Wipharak Phaophuree, also known as ‘Rose’, 25, a mass communication graduate from Kasetsart University who worked as a graphic designer and part-time DJ.
Wipada Jantham, her adoptive mother told reporters, before the body was formally identified on May 17th, that she had been desperately searching for Wipharak after the family lost contact with her following the crash.
Fighting back tears, Wipada said she had raised Rose as her own daughter.
She recalled that shortly after the accident on May 16th, her daughter’s smartwatch repeatedly sent alerts to her phone while she was at home in Ubon Ratchathani province.
“The watch kept vibrating and sending notifications nonstop,” she said. “I tried calling her over and over, but there was no answer.”
She said she immediately felt something was wrong and made dozens of phone calls trying to reach her daughter before someone finally answered.
“A rescue worker picked up the phone and asked me what was my relationship to the owner of the phone. “I told them that I am her mother,’ she said. “Then he told me that my daughter had been involved in an accident,” she said.
Wipada said she was shocked because her daughter usually travelled by electric train or motorcycle taxi when commuting to work.
“I didn’t even know she had taken the bus that day,” she said.
After checking Rose’s social media stories, however, she saw her daughter sitting on a bus with a bag resting on her lap shortly before the accident.
“Part of me still hopes that my daughter may somehow have been overlooked in a hospital. I pray for miracle and that what I fear is not true,” she said.
Wipada said Rose had dreamed of saving enough money to eventually return home and care for her family. “That was her dream,” she said.
Rose graduated with second-class honours from Kasetsart University and later secured a job in Bangkok after impressing a company during her internship.
“She was very capable and always careful,” her mother said. “I never thought something like this would happen to her.”
The Department of Communication Arts and Information Science at Kasetsart University later posted a message expressing its deepest condolences over her death.
Meanwhile, the funeral for Iang Manochaem, 66, known as “Aunt Iang”, a housekeeper who worked near Chulalongkorn Hospital, was held at a temple in Bang Phli district of Samut Prakan province yesterday.
The victim’s son, Anusorn Manochaem, 46, said his mother regularly used buses and electric trains to travel to work on weekdays and had always believed public transport was safe.
“She had only recently started taking this bus route after finding work in Bangkok,” he said.
He described his mother as hardworking and resilient, saying she had been both father and mother to her three children and the family’s main provider.
“This is the greatest loss for our family. Everything has collapsed,” he said.
Anusorn said his mother had recently been planning to start a small business selling foot-massage equipment, to earn extra income while caring for sick people.
Before her final trip, she had asked him to buy Vietnamese fermented pork rolls for her when he returned to Samut Prakan.
“I told her that we could eat them together here instead and asked her to dress nicely,” he said. “That was the outfit she wore that day.”
The fourth victim identified was Thiam Phuangyod, 57, a housekeeper employed by a company assigned to work at the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s headquarters.
TAT governor Thapanee Kiatphaibool wrote on Facebook expressing condolences over her death.
