BANGKOK
The carnage is complete.
Thailand's New Year festival closed at a 6-year low Thursday with news that an astonishing 364 people were killed in road accidents from April 9-15 - the highest number of "Songkran" road fatalities since 2009.
The number was up 13 percent on 2014's water and alcohol-fuelled mayhem, local media reported Thursday.
Songkran sees both Thais and foreigners alike - many drunk - take to the streets armed with water pistols, hosepipes and buckets of water. In the ensuing chaos, cars plough through traffic crossings, motorbikes skid on wet roads, fights break out and the calmest of partygoers lose their heads.
The Bangkok Post reported Thursday that the “Seven dangerous days” - or "Jet waan ti pen antalai" as it is known locally - also saw 3,559 other injuries in 3,373 road accidents. This compares with 322 deaths, 3,225 injuries and 2,992 accidents during Songkran last year.
“The high death and injury toll is due to drunk driving and speeding without safety gear such as crash helmets,” Deputy Interior Minister Sutee Markboon told a press conference Thursday.
He added that drunkenness was the cause of 40 percent of the accidents and speeding of 25 percent. Over 80 percent of the accidents involved motorbikes.
According to the Thai Road Safety Centre, the figures this year are the worst since 2009 when 373 people were killed and 4,332 injured in road accidents.
Whereas the New Year tradition originally involved millions of Thais returning to their native provinces or tourist sites, and a gentle pouring of water on a Buddha statue or an elderly person as a sign of respect, in the past 20 years the festival has degenerated into an all-out water war.
Celebrations have become an orgy of alcohol fuelled, water throwing chaos, with foreign tourists in such places as Bangkok’s back-packer area of Khao San Road all too prepared to lend a hand.
Water is thrown at partygoers, motorbikes and cars – sometimes from buckets also filled with ice – white powder is daubed, and the words “Chokdee Pi Mai” - "Happy New Year " - are uttered nationwide (often to placate rather than bless).
The madness, however, is not just Thailand’s problem.
In neighboring Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, similar festivals attract such chaos.
In 2013, Thailand had the second worst road safety record in the world behind Namibia, with 44 road deaths per 100,000 people, according to a study by the University of Michigan’s transportation research institute.
Observers on social networks highlighted the almost complete lack of a road safety campaign prior to this year's Thai festivities - in contrast with the campaigns launched by the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014.
The ruling junta overthrew Shinawatra's government in a coup on May 22 - a few weeks after Songkran - last year.
Army leader-cum-Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has since vowed to return happiness to the people.
