Phnom Penh [Cambodia], August 5: A truck transporting garment workers to their factory flipped onto its side in southwest Cambodia's Kampong Speu province on Saturday morning, leaving 60 workers wounded, a provincial senior police official said.
The accident occurred in Samraong Tong district when the truck's driver drove fast and crashed at a curve in the road, said Tab Lon, Kampong Speu provincial deputy police chief in charge of road traffic.
"The truck overturned and threw workers into a paddy field," he told Xinhua. "Sixty workers got injured including 10 in serious condition."
Those ill-fated workers had been rushed to nearby hospitals, Lon said, adding that the police are hunting for the 24-year-old male driver, who escaped the scene soon after the crash.
According to the official, the truck carried a total of more than 70 factory workers at the time of the accident.
Transporting workers in open trucks to and from factories are common in this Southeast Asian country.
According to the National Social Security Fund, some 17 factory workers died, 200 were seriously injured and 479 slightly wounded during their commutes to and from work in the first quarter of 2023.
The country's multibillion-U.S.-dollar garment industry comprises roughly 1,100 factories, employing around 750,000 workers.
Source: Xinhua