Sawt Falasteen - Fatal back-to-back Thailand crane failures tied to same firm

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

Motorcycle-taxi driver Booncherd La-orium said he no longer felt safe driving in the area.

"I had goosebumps just thinking about how risky it is to be here. It could have happened to me," the 69-year-old told AFP.

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

"We have to find out the facts," Phiphat told a local outlet.

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

In a note to Thailand's stock exchange, Italian-Thai expressed condolences to the victims' of the crane accident on Thursday, saying it would provide compensation.

The firm also pledged to "review and improve safety measures to be more thorough and stringent moving forward", the note said.

Italian-Thai earlier promised compensation to victims of Wednesday's crane collapse and train derailment.

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 at the under-construction Rama II Expressway in Samut Sakhon province, outside Bangkok, left two people dead, a police official told AFP from the scene.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters his government would terminate the contracts with the contractor of the two projects where the accidents occurred, without specifying a firm by name.

Anutin said legal action would be taken and the contractor would be blacklisted.

"It has happened three or four times by one contractor. The government is not comfortable letting this kind of company work for the government," he said.

- 'Death Road' -

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."

"That was close," the first person says.

Rescue worker Sutthiwat Thanomsat told AFP he arrived at the scene shortly after the crane crashed down, and witnessed the aftermath of a pickup truck driver killed by the impact.

The Rama II Expressway, a main artery linking the capital to Thailand's south, hosts several major infrastructure projects, including tollway construction.

Construction work has been underway 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".

Surachai Wongho, a 61-year-old retiree who drives on Rama II regularly, said he is haunted by the thought that one day he could be hurt in an accident.

"It's the same incident happening over and over again in Thailand. It's time for the government to do something," he told AFP.

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.

- Silent prayers -

The incident on Thursday followed the crane collapse in Nakhon Ratchasima a 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 onto a passenger train below.

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

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

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

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.

G.AbuHamad--SF-PST