Thailand Incident - Crane collapses onto train

[antharro]

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9qeq08g70yt

At least 22 people have been killed after a construction crane fell on top of a moving train carriage at around 09:00 local time (02:00 GMT)

According to official records, the train, which was carrying at least 195 people, had been travelling from Bangkok to a province in northeastern Thailand

At least 80 people were wounded from the collision - with a one-year-old being the youngest injured

One survivor, a train staff member, recalled how he and the other passengers were thrown into the air after the crane fel on the vehicle

Location: Ban Thanon Khot, Nakhon Ratchasima province, north of Bangkok.

A crane working on a rail project collapsed from an overhead structure onto the second carriage of a three carriage train. At the time of this post, twenty two people have died and seventy nine are injured. Official photos and video in the link above. From the initial description and photo, I wondered if it was an ASR class (BR 158 export) but I'm 99% I'm wrong.

RIP to those deceased and hope the injured recover. Hopefully no further deaths.

 

[DelW]

Although widely described as a crane, it appears to have been a gantry, used for placing precast concrete deck units on a viaduct above and almost parallel to the line.

Some reports refer to one such precast unit having fallen onto the train, though if so it hasn't been visible on photos I've seen. The gantry beams are heavily distorted, and it's possible it was being launched towards the next span at the time, and overbalanced.

As often in these cases, it's a construction accident rather than a railway accident, and Thailand's construction industry has a poor safety record. That's no consolation to the unfortunate passengers on the train caught up in it of course.

(Edit to add: this is based on the BBC report linked from the previous post. It's too long to quote effectively but this is the current summary):

• At least 22 people have been killed after a construction crane fell on top of a moving train carriage at around 09:00 local time (02:00 GMT)
• According to official records, the train, which was carrying at least 195 people, had been travelling from Bangkok to a province in northeastern Thailand
• At least 80 people were wounded from the collision - with a one-year-old being the youngest injured
• One survivor, a train staff member, recalled how he and the other passengers were thrown into the air after the crane fel on the vehicle
• The Governor of the State Railway of Thailand has been called to "thoroughly and comprehensively" investigate the cause of the accident
• Deadly construction accidents are not uncommon in Thailand, due in part to poor enforcement of standards and regulations

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

From the initial description and photo, I wondered if it was an ASR class (BR 158 export) but I'm 99% I'm wrong.

From the fleet number 2521 seen in the BBC video it can be identified as an APD.20 class DMU built by Daewoo Heavy Industries in 1995.

 

[zuriblue]

Unfortunately the death toll is now up to 32.

The crane was a bridge girder launch crane, building the high speed line above the classic line (presumably to save land footprint)

From the local English language newspaper the Bangkok Post https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailan...ad-after-crane-falls-on-moving-train-in-korat

The crane fell onto two carriages of the train, according to the State Railway of Thailand (SRT). The impact of the collapse — involving a crane used to lift concrete girders for an elevated high-speed rail line — caused the coaches to derail and catch fire, according to local media reports.

According to initial reports, the crane first fell onto the second carriage, which had 40 passengers inside. A fire erupted, making escape difficult as the air-conditioned train had electric automatic doors and windows that could not be opened by hand.

‘Two explosions’​

Local resident Mitr Intrpanya, who was at the scene, said he heard a loud noise “like something sliding down from above, followed by two explosions”.

“When I went to see what had happened, I found the crane sitting on a passenger train with three carriages,” the 54-year-old told AFP. “The metal from the crane appeared to strike the middle of the second carriage, slicing it in half.”

 

[DelW]

The same company had another bridge gantry collapse the next day, this time killing two people on the road beneath:

Thailand: Two killed in another construction crane collapse

It comes one day after a crane accident in another part of the country killed 32 people.

www.bbc.co.uk

Two people were killed after a construction crane collapsed onto a highway in Thailand, a day after a crane accident in another part of the country left 32 people dead.

The crane was being used to build an expressway in Samut Sakhon, a Bangkok suburb. Footage shows the moment the crane crashed onto the highway, crushing some cars and leaving a cloud of dust and debris on its trail.

Wednesday's crane collapse in the north-eastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima had seen a crane fall on top of a moving train, leaving more than 60 people injured.

Construction works in both incidents are being handled by the same company, Italian-Thai Development, one of Thailand's largest builders.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

Not only that but the same company "was responsible for the construction of a Bangkok skyscraper that collapsed last March during an earthquake, when no other buildings in the city fell".

 

[stuving]

Here is an article from The Nation in Thailand that talks about launch girder collapses - which are even more common in Thailand than you thought. As well as the recent two, there were two during elevated highway construction: one in July 2023 on the Laad Krabang-On Nut bridge and one in November 2024 on the Rama 2 highway. I found a picture of that, with the contractor's name Udomsak Chiangmai on it.

The Nation has this:

Professor Dr Amorn Pimanmas, the President of the Association, explained that the launching crane truss is a movable steel framework used in constructing the high-speed rail structure, built progressively section by section. However, the component that fell onto the train was the support base, placed underneath the steel truss. This support base weighed 20-30 tons per unit.

Yesterday's Times had an overhead view of Wednesday's accident site (from Getty, I think, but I've not located it), which made it easier to see what must have happened. You could see that the forward girder support was missing, and the leading end of the girder had crashed down onto a pier (straddle gantry) of the viaduct. That buckled the girder, and it's not surprising that the crane that runs along it, or part of it, plus the segment it was carrying, broke away and fell on the track below.