Early this evening there was a constant howl of sirens passing through our village of Nong Gik. We live about 200 meters off that main road so I couldn't tell what kind of emergency vehicles they were. My wife went to her mother's house to take her nephew home and heard about the accident. Kun Ming is about 16 kilometers west of Nong Hin.

Apparently a tour bus coming down the mountain from Kun Ming lost its brakes. It crashed into a drainage ditch. There were some killed and many badly injured. That's all I know right now. I'll update tomorrow.

Four dead at the scene and my wife just told me the driver died too. Total of five dead. Supposedly a group of teachers from Udon Thani.

The other side of the bus is the badly damaged side.

Thanks G for taking the time to post.

Neither The Nation or BKK Post had any mention of this sad event that I could find. I have seen some nasty pile-ups on ring-road (Udorn) but again never see the write ups in the major English rags.

Makes one wonder how many accidents actually happen in or around our respective areas.

I wonder how many are never reported?

I wonder how many are never reported?

I would guess that those tour bus companies would want to keep it as quiet as possible. Those tired old poorly maintained buses are painted up and look very nice. Beautiful paint jobs and in poor condition under the paint. I suppose many of them would be out of business if the buses had to have a safety inspection.

My favorite watering hole is up on that mountain. Many of those buses break down on the way up and are repaired right in the middle of the road where they stopped. The passengers wait no matter how long the repairs take. Just today one of them dropped off about 20 passengers, proceeded on up the mountain and sent a van down to pick up the passengers the bus dropped off.

I wonder how many are never reported?

only because you dont read about that in the ENGLISH language newspapers, it doesnt mean they are never reported. buy a local paper in THAI LANGUAGE and you will find more reports of that kind (including detailled pictures) than your stomach can bear....