Thai Holiday Death Toll Hits 350: ReportsAt least 350 people have so far been killed and over 25,000 injured in car crashes and other accidents during the last two days of the Songkran holiday celebrations, the Nation newspaper reported Sunday.According to the government's National Accident Monitoring Center (NAMC), the figure is much higher compared with 164 deaths and 1,492 injuries during last years' entire Songkran holiday period between April 12 and 17. However, police spokesman Yongyuth Sarasombat said the marked increase of holiday casualties was mainly due to a change in the ways of data-collecting, noting that last year's figures were based on police reports while this year's on NAMC. He said the causes of the accidents were generally people's carelessness, and most of the road incidents were linked with private cars and occurred on small streets. A limited road security budget and poor coordination among agencies concerned also attributed to the high accident ratio. Songkran, or the Thai New Year, is the grandest holiday celebrations according to Thai tradition, when millions of city residents travel upcountry, resulting in traffic jams and increased number of accidents and casualties. |
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