Eleven people, including a 3-year-old child, were killed in Pursat province Thursday evening when an out-of-control truck tumbled into a crowd of Katin festival revelers, police said Sunday.
The accident occurred at around 9 pm when a Mitsubishi truck overloaded with kitchenware collided with a smaller Hyundai truck parked on the side of the road, said Bakan district police deputy chief Soun Sambath. The collision overturned both vehicles, rolling them on top of a crowd of festival-goers.
“Some victims died when their heads smashed against the truck and some died because their legs were severed,” Soun Sambath said, adding that an additional 13 people were injured in the accident, 10 of them seriously.
“This is the worst [motor vehicle] accident to occur in the district,” he said. “It was the driver’s mistake because the victims were on the sidewalk; they were not crossing the street.”
The driver—who police believe fell asleep at the wheel—survived the crash and fled the scene on foot while police tried to help the injured, said provincial traffic police deputy chief Ros Chamroeun.
Police are trying to locate the driver, he said, but have not yet been able to establish his identity.
Ros Chamroeun said that the common phenomenon of drivers successfully fleeing the scenes of fatal accidents could be attributed in large part to problems with the issuing of license plates, which often cannot be traced back to the driver of a vehicle.
“We don’t know whether we can find the driver or not,” he said, adding that under the new traffic law, offenders can earn up to six years in prison for leaving the scene of an accident.
