Fifty-four illegal immigrants from Myanmar died inside one container truck in Thailand's southern province of Ranong late Wednesday night, local media reported Thursday morning.
The victims included 17 men and 37 women, who died from suffocation, The Nation TV news channel reported on Thursday morning. Another 21 passengers were seriously injured.
Local police said they received reports on Wednesday night about a suspicious vehicle parking on roadside in Suksamran district, Ranong, the southern coastal province bordering Myanmar.
The police arrived at the site and rescued the survivors. They sent the injured to a local hospital and detained the 44 uninjured passengers for questioning.
The dead were placed at a local charity institution, waiting for families to claim the bodies.
According to initial investigation, the container truck, heading to Phuket province in southern Thailand, was carrying more than 119 Myanmar nationals. The survivors told the police they had been smuggled into Thailand by Thai traffickers from Victoria Point in Myanmar on a fishing boat Wednesday night, before being packed into this container truck heading to Phuket, the popular resort island of Phuket where they hoped they could find a job.
When the immigrants found some of their fellows suffering from breathing difficulty and faintness because of the high heat and poor ventilation inside the container after two hours' trip, they beat loudly at the walls to alert the driver, who did not notice at first.
The driver finally stopped the truck and checked. When he found that many passengers died, he ditched the truck and fled, police said.
A local villager who found the truck alerted police at about 10 p.m. (1500GMT) Wednesday.
Police blamed the driver for failing to turn on the air conditioning inside the container, causing the suffocation.
An arrest warrant has been issued nationwide to hunt the suspect driver and police also launched an investigation into the human trafficker gang behind the smuggling case.
(Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2008)
