More than 20 children died in a bus accident in Thailand

The bodies of 20 children and three teachers have been found after a bus carrying school students crashed and caught fire outside Bangkok.

The bus was returning to the Thai capital after a school trip to the north of the country.

Videos from the scene showed flames from the bus as it burned under the overpass, with a huge cloud of thick black smoke billowing into the sky.

The driver surrendered to police about 100km (61 miles) north of Bangkok, according to local media.

Photos taken after the fatal accident show the driver trying to put out the fire, but he reportedly fled the scene.

Eyewitnesses said the bus hit the concrete road separating the main road north of Bangkok, after the front tire exploded.

Soon the bus was engulfed in flames, many of the passengers could not get out. The cause of the fire is still unknown.

19 children and three teachers are reported to have survived, sixteen of them were treated for their injuries at the hospital.

Transport Minister Suriyahe Juangroongruangkit said the bus was running on “very dangerous” compressed natural gas.

“This is a very sad incident,” Mr Suriyahe told reporters at the scene.

“The department must find a way… if possible, so that vehicles carrying people like these are prohibited from using this type of fuel because it is very dangerous.”

Mr. Piyalak Thinkaew who led the investigation said it was difficult to identify the bodies because they were badly burned.

“Some of the bodies we found were very small,” he told reporters at the scene, adding that the fire started in the front of the bus.

“The children’s idea was to run to the back so that the bodies could be there,” he said.

The intelligence officers said that out of the 23 bodies found, eleven are men, seven are women and the other five are still unknown.

The age of the children on board is not yet clear, but the school caters for students between the ages of three and 15.

Thailand has one of the worst road safety records in the worldwith unsafe vehicles and impaired driving contributing to the deaths of approximately 20,000 people each year.

The Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, Anutin Charnvirakul, said that the investigation is still ongoing. “We will have to investigate the traces of driving on the tire machine, traces of burning, and CCTV images,” he said.