Cambodian PM urges drivers to respect laws after bus crash kills 18

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday called on all drivers to respect traffic laws after a road crash killed at least 18 garment workers and injured 21 others in eastern Svay Rieng province.

"The problem of traffic accidents is getting worse and worse in Cambodia. This requires all drivers to strictly comply with traffic laws," he said at a graduation ceremony of students at the Royal University of Phnom Penh.

He also ordered officials to enforce traffic laws so as to reduce road traffic fatalities.

The premier's appeal came after a speeding bus crashed head-on into a van carrying 39 garment workers on Tuesday morning in eastern Cambodia's Svay Rieng province.

Originally, both Hun Sen and Keong Khon, police chief of Svay Rieng province, announced that 21 people were killed in the accident, but later, the death toll was revised to 18 because some, who were supposed to be dead, were just unconscious.

The garment and footwear industry, the kingdom's largest foreign currency earner, is comprised of 1,087 factories with some 700,000 workers, mostly females. Last year, the Southeast Asian country exported 6.2 billion U.S. dollars worth of products, mainly to Europe and the United States.

"It is a terrible traffic accident in Svay Rieng province," Hun Sen said. "I'd like to express my condolences to the families of the dead people and wish the injured people to recover soon."

Svay Rieng provincial governor Chieng Am said the bus traveled from Vietnam to Phnom Penh City while the accident took place, and all the ill-fated people were in the van.

"A Cambodian bus driver was arrested soon after the accident," he told Xinhua on Tuesday evening.

The death toll of road accidents has become the No. 1 killer in Cambodia among those of HIV/AIDS and mine casualties.

Last year, the accidents had claimed 2,148 lives in Cambodia, costing the country about 337 million U.S. dollars, according to the Ministry of Interior. Endi