Seoul Gazette - Fatal back-to-back crane failures tied to same Thai firm: minister

Car dashcam footage verified by AFP showed the moment the massive crane fell on Thursday, unleashing clouds of dust as well rubble across the area as several vehicles pulled over or reversed to avoid falling debris.

Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn linked Italian-Thai Development to the country's second deadly crane collapse in two days, according to local media.

The company was contracted to build a section of a China-backed high-speed rail project where a massive crane fell on Wednesday, in Nakhon Ratchasima province, derailing a passenger train below and killing 32 of nearly 200 people on board.

"Yes, it is Italian-Thai. I still do not understand what happened," Phiphat told local media on Thursday.

"We have to find out the facts, whether it was an accident or something else," he said, adding that two people were killed.

The company -- one of Thailand's biggest construction firms -- has seen several deadly accidents at its sites in recent years.

The crane that fell Thursday morning at the under-construction Rama II Expressway in Samut Sakhon province, outside Bangkok, left two people dead, local police chief Sitthiporn Kasi told AFP from the scene.

In other verified footage from the same vehicle as the dashcam, someone is heard saying: "I almost died... Please pull over first".

Another person replies: "That's okay now. It's not falling further. It's a crane collapse again in front of me."

"That was close," the first person says.

The Rama II Expressway, an important highway linking the capital to Thailand's south, hosts several major infrastructure projects, including tollway construction.

Major work has been under way for years to expand the road's capacity and reduce congestion but the project has been beset by delays and fatalities, earning it the nickname "Death Road".

In March, a concrete beam forming part of an under-construction elevated roadway collapsed on Rama II, killing several people.

A crane collapse in November 2024 killed at least three workers, while local media reported two more deadly accidents in May 2023 and January 2024.

The incident on Thursday followed the crane collapse in Nakhon Ratchasima, northeast of the capital Bangkok, one day earlier.

One of Thailand's deadliest rail accidents in years, a massive launching gantry crane, used by Italian-Thai in the construction of a high-speed rail project, collapsed Wednesday morning onto a passenger train below.

The health ministry said 32 people were confirmed dead, three were missing and 64 were hospitalised including seven in serious condition.

In Nakhon Ratchasima on Thursday, construction workers milled around the scene, snapping photos of the wreckage, as relatives of victims visited the site to mourn and pray in silence.

The crane was still hanging off giant concrete pillars, built to hold up the future elevated high-speed rail line -- a joint Thailand-China endeavour.

Italian-Thai expressed condolences on Wednesday, and promised to compensate the victims' families and cover medical expenses for the injured.

The nation's rail operator said it ordered Italian-Thai to halt construction until an investigation was completed.

Transport Minister Phiphat said Wednesday that all parties involved would be held accountable, including Italian-Thai and a Chinese consultancy company.

The crane operator was Thai and had fallen and died in Wednesday's accident, an Italian-Thai worker who declined to give her name told AFP.

She said there were around 10 people working at the time of the accident.

V.Pyo--SG