The accident prompted acting Chinese Consulate-General in Phuket, Ma Cui Hong, to call for more safety measures for tourist buses as two similar crashes have occurred in the past 10 days.

Police said the accident happened at about 11pm on Monday on Phisit Road near Wat Suwankhiriwong, which is the Patong Beach-bound downhill road from Patong mountain.

The bus with 33 people on board – including 25 Chinese tourists, six Thai guides and the bus driver and his wife – flipped after it hit motorcycles parked on the side of the road in front of houses.

Police said the 10-year-old Ly Jle Ru died inside the bus, while his father Lyu Pel, 36 was pronounced dead at Vajira Phuket Hospital.

Four of the injured were in serious condition in hospital while the rest were released.

The bus driver, Krittaporn Nualtua, 36, a Phuket resident, said he was taking the tourists to a Patong hotel when the brake system on the bus malfunctioned as they were going downhill.

He said the bus built up speed and he lost control and the bus crashed into motorcycles then flipped on its side.

The uninjured bus driver tested negative for drug and alcohol use.

Patong Superintendant Pol Colonel Thassanai Olarnrikdech said police were attempting to determine whether the accident was caused by recklessness or another factor.

The curved, steep section of road has seen many fatal accidents. On June 29, a bus transporting Chinese tourists hit and killed a motorcyclist after the brakes on the bus failed.

Phuket governor Norapat Plodthong who visted the injured tourists on Tuesday morning said that the crash was due to a brake malfunction at the downhill curve which had seen three accidents this year.

Norapat said he would discuss with related agencies and traffic police how best to prevent a re-occurance of the fatality.

Norapat also met with acting Chinese Consulate-General in Phuket, Ma Cui Hong, who thanked the province and related agencies for aiding the tourists. She was concerned that the same location had seen two crashes in the past 10 days and urged the province to take measures to make the road safer.

The Thai food giant — which owns major global brands such as Chicken of the Sea, John West and Petit Navire — has long been a bete noire to those campaigning against overfishing and abusive working conditions on boats.

But on Tuesday it released a joint statement with Greenpeace announcing a series of reforms that both said should encourage other seafood behemoths to follow suit.

“This marks huge progress for our oceans and marine life and for the rights of people working in the seafood industry,” Greenpeace International Executive Director Bunny McDiarmid said in the statement.

“Now is the time for other companies to step up, and show similar leadership.”

Among the commitments Thai Union has made is to cut the number of fish aggregating devices (FADs) it uses by 50 per cent by 2020 and reduce longline fishing.

FADs, which float on the surface to attract fish, and longlines are effective ways of catching large hauls of lucrative fish like tuna.

But they often result in reams of other animals being caught, including endangered sharks and turtles.

The reforms will also target working conditions on board Thai Union boats and those of its suppliers including an extended moratorium on “transshipping”.

Transshipping is a method many fishing giants use to keep trawlers at sea as long as possible, often for years at a time.

Catches are transferred to refrigerated transport vessels at sea, saving the time and fuel costs of returning to port.

While economically efficient, environmental groups have long warned that transshipping allows trawlers to hide illegal catches and often leads to slavery-like conditions for many of the low-paid fishermen who spend years onboard their boats.

Thai Union have also agreed to allow independent observers or digital tracking devices onto all their longline boats and will meet with Greenpeace every six months to assess implementation.

In the joint statement, CEO Thiraphong Chansiri said his company “has fully embraced its role as a leader for positive change as one of the largest seafood companies in the world.”

Thai Union posted worldwide sales of $3.8 billion in 2016 and is targeting $8 billion revenue by 2020.

Thailand is the world’s third largest seafood exporter but the industry has been dogged by allegations of rights abuses and cheap labour in its fishing fleets and many food processing factories.

The sector is mainly staffed by poor migrant workers from Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

The European Union has threatened to ban all its seafood products unless the military government tackles rampant illegal fishing among its fleets.//AFP

Weerawan, who won this year’s TIP Report Hero Acting to End Modern Slavery Award, was speaking at a press conference at American Hub, Bangkok.

She said she had noticed a greater incidence of human trafficking and sexual crimes against children in recent years, and encouraged proper awareness-raising among children to protect themselves from traffickers.

“We have come across more and more worrying cases of human trafficking in children to the sex industry and cases of paedophilia,” Weerawan said.

“In the end, when facing these evil practices, we are all confronted with a choice: do nothing, or do something.”

As the founder and director of children’s rights protection group HUG Project, based in Chiang Mai, she said that her work was not only limited to the North. Her team has been working to help the victims of human trafficking in children nationwide.

“Up until now, there have been more than 100 cases of human trafficking in children that our organisation has worked on, and there are around 30 cases that have already been in court,” she said.

She said that the mission to assist the victims of human trafficking was not enough to end the practice. Therefore, she stressed the defensive approach of raising awareness and equipping children with the knowledge of how to protect themselves.

Weerawan said her group was trying to have lessons on how to prevent yourself from being a victim of human trafficking and sexual harassment included in the school curriculum.

“We encourage schools to set up monitoring systems to find students who are in trouble and help them,” she said.

“The family of the deceased, Dong Shukui, 67, said that they had arrived in Thailand on July 7 and were scheduled to fly back on August 4. They were staying at the Rayaburi hotel on Racha Island from July 9-11,” said Capt Somkiat Sarasit of Chalong Police.

Dong was wearing a life jacket and was snorkelling. His family members noticed that he had disappeared from sight and attempted to find him.

When he was spotted underwater, hotel staff and rescue officers pulled him out and performed CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).

He was then taken to hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

“We did not find any signs of violence or struggle on his body,” added Capt Somkiat.

Police are investigating the cause of death and have informed the Chinese Embassy of the incident.

The owner of the project on Tuesday promised to repair the homes back to their previous condition.

Some 20 residents had to flee their homes at Saeng Tawan Housing Estate in Bang Sao Thong district as sudden subsidence around midnight on Monday left eight one-storey townhouses visibly tilting with cracks running through the walls.

Waritha Doundsungnoen, 50, who was among the affected residents, said her family’s sleep was disturbed by what sounded “like rats running around the ceiling”, followed by loud cracking and the whole house shaking.

“We ran outside and saw that our neighbours were doing the same,” she said.

Suwit Sothipreedawong, the housing estate project’s board member, said the incident was caused when the footings of the houses were pushed out of place. This was due to subsidence a few days earlier, which was in the process of being repaired.

He said the project would take responsibility for reparing the eight homes to be “good as new” – which would take up to two months to complete.

The affected residents and their belongings were moved temporarily to newly-built two-storey townhouses on the same estate, until their homes were repaired.

Tambon Bang Sao Thong Administrative Organisation president Kasem Saelee said the houses had been sealed off for safety. He said the administrative organisation officials would check on the progress of the repairs periodically and prevent future problems.