Almost 30 people perished at about 8:30 EST yesterday morning in Thailand after a charter bus carrying Thai local government officials experienced brake failure and plummeted 150 meters into a ravine.

“The toll is now at 30 dead and 21 injured — they are severely injured from what I can see,” police captain Sittichai Panyasong of Mae Tho district in Tak province said, revising up an earlier toll.

A local hospital confirmed the number of dead at 30, adding most died immediately at the scene.   

Thailand’s roads are among the world’s deadliest and accidents are common, especially on buses travelling late at night.

A recent report by the World Health Organization said Thailand saw some 38.1 road deaths per 100,000 people in 2010 — behind only the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean and the South Pacific island of Niue.

That compares with an average of 18.5 in Southeast Asia as a whole.