A truck loaded with canned juice collided with a van full of tourists at high speed in Kampot province on Thursday, killing one passenger and injuring nine others, police said on Friday.
The truck crashed into a SsangYong van—carrying 10 people including three Chinese nationals—after swerving into the oncoming lane of National Road 3 in Toek Chhou district’s Prey Thnang commune at about 2 p.m., said commune police chief Som Samoeun.
The truck driver and his passenger fled the scene, he said.
“This is our first guess: Maybe the truck driver was dozing off at the wheel,” Mr. Samoeun said. “Witnesses said there were two people in the truck and they fled on foot into the nearby forest…after the accident.”
The police chief said investigators were searching for the pair.
Chea Pheara, a deputy district police chief, said the van driver and his nine passengers, who were en route to Kampot City from Phnom Penh, were rushed to the Kampot Referral Hospital.
It took 30 minutes to extract the driver, 32-year-old Hong Sochea, from the van, as the front of the vehicle had been crushed, he said.
Mr. Pheara also said the evidence pointed to the truck driver falling asleep at the wheel.
“Maybe the truck driver was sleepy and ran into the van,” he said.
Shortly after arriving at the hospital—about 20 km away from the scene of the accident—one of the passengers died of major head trauma, he said.
Vet Chan, a traffic police officer in Toek Chhou, identified the dead passenger as Seng Sokea, a 58-year-old resident of Phnom Penh.
All of the victims were transferred to Phnom Penh’s Calmette Hospital early Thursday evening, he said. The hospital could not be reached on Friday.
