A fire on a double-decker bus carrying migrant workers to a Bangkok factory has killed 20 people.

The bus burst into flames at about 1.30am on Friday in Tak province in western Thailand on the border with Myanmar.

Image: The bus was left as a skeleton

Local media said the workers were from Myanmar and had been heading to a factory in an industrial area near Bangkok.

Police Lieutenant Raewat Aiemtak said 27 people managed to escape the bus, one of whom was severely burned.

He said the driver reported that the fire started in the middle of the bus and spread quickly.


Image: 20 people died in the fire on the Thailand-Myanmar border

People in the front managed to escape but those in the back were trapped.

Pictures showed the bus burned to a skeleton after firefighters put the blaze out.

The incident is the latest in a series of bus crashes in Thailand, which has the second-highest rate of traffic fatalities in the world after Libya, according to the World Health Organisation.

Image: Firefighters putting the blaze out

On 21 March a tour bus lost control on a downhill curve in the northeast and slid off the road, killing 18 and injuring 33.

The day after, a school bus taking pupils on a trip in the central province of Ayutthaya skidded in the rain and flipped, injuring 39 people.