/T-w-e-n-t-y children d-e-a-d after Thailand school bus fire/

The bodies of 20 children and three teachers have been found after a bus carrying school students crashed and caught fire near Bangkok.The bus was returning to the capital from a school trip in northern Thailand.

   Firefighters remove a wrapped-up body from the bus

Videos showed the bus on fire under a bridge, with thick black smoke rising into the air.The driver turned himself in to the police 100 kilometers (61 miles) north of Bangkok, according to local reports. Footage from right after the crash showed the driver trying to put out the fire, but he later fled.Witnesses say the bus crashed into a concrete barrier after a front tire burst.

The bus quickly caught fire, and many passengers were unable to escape. The exact cause of the fire is still unknown.Nineteen children and three teachers survived, with 16 of them being treated in the hospital. Thailand's Transport Minister, Suriya Juangroongruangkit, said the bus was using compressed natural gas, which he called "extremely risky.""This is a very tragic incident," he said. "The ministry needs to find a way to prevent passenger vehicles like this from using such dangerous fuel."

    Firefighters remove a wrapped-up body from the bus

Piyalak Thinkaew, leading the search, said it was difficult to identify the bodies because they were severely burned. "Some of the bodies were very small," he said, adding that the fire started at the front of the bus."The children tried to escape to the back, so we found the bodies there," he explained.

Forensic police reported that of the 23 bodies found, 11 were male, 7 female, and 5 were too damaged to identify. The ages of the children are unclear, but the school serves students between 3 and 15 years old.

  Distraught loved ones of people killed in the tragedy visited the crash site

Thailand has one of the worst road safety records in the world, with about 20,000 deaths each year due to unsafe vehicles and poor driving.Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said an investigation is underway, looking into tire marks, fire damage, and CCTV footage.