March 05, 2016•Update: March 05, 2016
By Max Constant
BANGKOK
At least sixty people were injured Saturday when a commuter boat’s engine exploded in Thailand’s capital, throwing several people into the waters of a canal in east Bangkok.
Sarayut Chunnawat, chief of the Hua Mak police station located near the accident site, told The Bangkok Post that 67 passengers on-board the LNG-propelled boat were injured, two of them seriously.
In the aftermath of the incident, maritime police divers searched the dark waters of the canal for possible missing persons, but did not find any.
No family had reported missing persons as of Saturday mid-afternoon.
The commuter boat had been packed with passengers as it travelled on Klong Saen Saep – Bangkok’s busiest canal – from an eastern suburb to the city center.
Police General Sanit Mahathavorn, metropolitan police bureau chief, told local radio station INN that an initial investigation indicated that the explosion was caused by a gas leak.
The boat belonged to Family Transport Co., whose director, Chaovalit Metayaprapas, apologized for the accident, adding that the company would take responsibility for all medical costs from the accident.
He said that the company’s 70 boats had switched from diesel to LNG some time ago and that there had never been an incident.
“The LNG use had been approved properly by authorities and the installation was supervised by experts including from PTT Plc,” he said, referring to the Thai state-owned oil company.
Commuter boat services continued on Bangkok’s canals after the accident, but the transport ministry ordered all LNG-propelled boats to switch back to diesel.
Commuters in traffic-clogged Bangkok heavily rely on waterways, one of the fastest way of moving around the capital.
The “klongs” or canals, dug mostly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, are usually heavily polluted as they are also used by residents to throw away wastewater.
The majority of canals had been filled up in the mid-20th century and transformed into roads.
