Yangon – Seven construction workers, including three Myanmar migrants, were killed and two others were seriously injured after a concrete slab collapsed at a construction site in Thailand’s southern province of Phuket on Thursday.
A fuel terminal collapsed at 1 p.m. on Thursday, burying nine workers under the collapsed structure.
A Myanmar female and a Thai male were saved. A Myanmar female was among the dead, according to U Kyaw Soe Win, Myanmar’s labor attaché to Thailand.
Myanmar workers Ma Kaythi Khine and Ko Nay Myo Win, who both died in the accident, had been working in Thailand since 2012, the labor attaché told The Irrawaddy on Friday.
He also said Ma Myo Myo Ye suffered serious spinal and arm injuries and Ko Sa Aung Aung, the third fatality, had been working in Thailand since 2017 under the bilateral labor employment agreement.
“First we will carry out a funeral for the workers. And then we will work out the legal benefits and compensation for the deaths,” said U Kyaw Soe Win.
About 30 Myanmar migrants were working on the construction of the fuel terminal when the accident occurred.
Lawyer U Aung Myo Thant, representing the Myanmar Embassy and Myanmar Overseas Employment Agencies Federation in Bangkok, told The Irrawaddy that the accident occurred because of engineering mistakes, according to an inspection team.
In January 2019, four Myanmar migrants were killed in a car accident in southern Thailand’s Chumphon province, when a group of 23 migrants was allegedly illegally passing through Thailand to reach Malaysia.
In 2018, up to 30 Myanmar workers were killed in two vehicle accidents in the northern provinces of Tak and Kamphaeng Phet.
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