When the ill-fated coach skidded off a road and crashed into a tree in Prachuab Khiri Khan province over the weekend, it claimed 14 victims on the scene, while two more succumbed to their injuries in the hospital.

Among the fatalities were two young women. Kalyakorn Poon-iad, 18, known among her friends as Dokkhem, boarded the coach with her mother, Lamai, from Bangkok to their hometown in Nakhon Si Thammarat province.

Kalyakorn was in Bangkok for an interview with Silpakorn University, as she wished to study IT there.

Her aunt, Nitcharee Deesud, said that Kalyakorn was a TikTok user with about 16,000 followers. “She loved and was very good at what she did, shooting video clips and editing them into TikTok videos,” she said.

In applying to study in Silpakorn University, Nitcharee described her niece as a serious girl, as some of her TikTok clips addressed problems in her hometown, Ban Kuantia village in Tambon Nanglong of Cha-uat district.

Kalyakorn included her TikTok clips in the portfolio she used in her university application.

Initially, mother and daughter wanted to travel by plane, but the airport was too far away, so they chose to travel by tour bus, on which their lives ended.

Another young victim was Suparatna Hetthong, a native of Phatthalung province. Known as Fern, she was a fourth-year student at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Srinakharinwirot University.

Her mother, Ratchanee, 53, said her daughter was in her research phase and was about to graduate.

“She came home to surprise my husband and to collect soil to help in her research,” she said, tearfully. Fern studied hard and earned excellent grades.

“She had loved painting since childhood and won many competitions. She had a room full of her paintings and awards,” Ratchanee said

She told her mother that, when she graduated, she wanted to be an arts teacher of children, possibly abroad.

By Marisa Chimprabha