PHUKET: A 50-year-old woman was killed when a pickup she was driving plunged from a slippery road into a large pond at the site of an old mine in Kathu district on Sunday morning, police said.
The accident was reported to Kathu police at about 6.20am.
Police officers and divers from the Kusoltham Phuket Foundation went to the scene and found the pickup had veered off a bend into the pond below and was fully submerged in the water.
The divers found a woman trapped inside the vehicle. She was already dead.
The vehicle was lifted from the water with a crane in a two-hour operation. The rescuers then used hydraulic jacks to force-open the right front door to bring the body of the woman out.
She was identified as Chanpen Sombat, 50. The body was sent to Vachira Phuket Hospital for an autopsy.
A police investigation found that the woman was returning home near Patong beach in Kathu district from Phuket airport in heavy rain when the pickup ran off the road at a bend and plunged into the pond at the site of an old mine opposite GMS Duty Free on Phra Phuket Kaew road.
