Tak - A passenger van carrying 14 Myanmar workers back home to celebrate the Songkran festival was engulfed in flames after a tyre blew out, but all fortunately survived unhurt.
The driver, Singthong Sukprasoet, 53, told police he heard the front right tyre explode before the van started veering off a section of the Wang Chao-Tak highway in Wang Chao district on Monday morning.
He brought the vehicle to a halt on the median strip but suspected the petrol feed had also broken, so he told all the passengers to quickly leave.
Twenty minutes later, the van caught fire.
Police said the van was carrying Myanmar workers from Pata Pinklao shopping mall in Bangkok to Mae Sot border district, where they were to cross over into Myanmar.
Wang Chao police said Mr Singthong and van's operator would face legal action. They suspected the van was overloaded with passengers and was travelling off its regular route without permission.
Transport officials had already suspended Mr Singthong's driving licence and seized the van's registration plates.
Passenger van services have been under close scrutiny since a tragedy during the 2017 New Year holidays when a van carrying 15 people crashed into a pickup truck on a highway in Chon Buri's Ban Bung district.
The van was gutted by a fire which killed 14 passengers. The accident also claimed the lives of 11 people on the pickup.
