Eight people were killed and three others injured in an accident involving a freight train and a pickup truck, at a railway crossing in Mueang district of Chachoengsao province, early this morning (Friday).

The driver of the truck, who survived, told Chachoengsao police that he was taking workers from Bangkok’s Ladkrabang district to a fish farm in Mueang district of Chachoengsao.

Approaching the railway crossing at about 3am, the driver said he saw a train heading towards them, but one of the workers on the back of the truck urged him to cross the track in front of the train, which he did, hoping that he would make it safely.

The train crashed into the back of the truck, propelling it into a ditch. Everyone on the back of the truck was thrown out of the vehicle in different directions by the force of the collision. Five men and three women died at the scene and three others sustained serious injuries.

The owner of the fish farm told the police that he had asked his wife to call the truck driver, after he failed to show up with the workers at his farm at the expected time and was told that the truck had been involved in an accident with a train.