A pickup truck driven by an 11-year-old boy plowed into a group of 34 Buddhist monks on a pilgrimage in northeastern Thailand on Thursday, killing 9 and injuring 11 others, according to local police.
The boy drove off with a car that had a key left in it, they said.
Five of the monks were pronounced dead at the scene and three died not long after the crash at a hospital near the site in the Mukhadan province, about 400 miles north of Bangkok, the province’s governor, Worayan Bunnarat, said at a news conference. A ninth monk died later in the evening, according to the governor’s office. Emergency services were calling for blood donations.
The monks, who were accompanied by five followers, were on a long walking pilgrimage — a Buddhist spiritual practice — through Isan, Thailand’s agricultural heartland.
It was not clear what caused the crash, which the police said they are investigating. Witnesses told the police that the car was swerving before it hit the monks.
Monks in saffron robes are a regular sight in majority-Buddhist Thailand and are highly respected in Thai society. Photos of the crash scene showed robes strewed across the road and a severely damaged gold-colored pickup truck.
On social media, users expressed shock, with some blaming the parents of the boy, and others posting names and photos of monks they hoped were safe. “Who will be responsible for this?” one person asked.
A visibly shaken monk named Sompong, who survived the crash, said in a video posted by the Mukdahan Rescue Association, a volunteer emergency service, “I jumped to the side of the road. I saw my fellow monks being hit by the car and thrown into the air.”
Sompong said in the video that he had a premonition in which a whispering voice warned him of danger, so he moved to the far right of the road.
A nearby monastery announced on social media that it would provide shelter for the survivors until they could continue on their pilgrimage.
