The driver of the fully-laden tanker, belonging to Yanyong Co, had driven up to the Peach Hill, where he was told that he had come to the wrong hotel – the delivery was for the nearby Peach Blossom Resort.
Hurrying down the hill with the truck still fully laden, the driver last control, and the truck rolled and almost flattened a sala opposite the Da Mario restaurant, near the bottom of the hill.
The sala is used by Kata Centre tuk-tuk drivers, three of whom were taking their ease when the rolling juggernaut arrived. All ended up with broken legs.
A fourth man was trapped under a coconut tree felled by the tanker. One parked motorbike was also flattened. It took rescuers two hours before they could extract the last of the injured from the wreckage.
The driver was relatively undamaged. He fled.