BEING a Burmese on Phuket is never easy, in life or in death. The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation today lists seven deaths on Phuket's roads in the Songkran ''seven days of danger.''

Yet there was an eighth death, a woman who was killed when she was run over by a vehicle outside SuperCheap at 10am on Saturday. Because she is Burmese and her identity is unknown, she is not listed as an official death. Ignored in life and overlooked in death, such is the fate for many.

Official or not, six of the eight people killed on Phuket's roads at the weekend were Burmese.

We watched last night as the final rites were carried out for five of them, and the luckless Thai driver of an out-of-control pickup that collided with a tourist bus on Big Buddha Hill on Sunday morning - Burma's New Year's Day.

The community from a construction site in southern Phuket gathered until late at Sansuk Temple in Phuket City to say farewell to the tragic six, killed when the pickup, carrying 20 people, careened downhill and failed to take a steep bend.

Today five of 14 other Burmese injured in the crash remained in Phuket City's Vachira Hospital, mostly being treated for head injuries and broken bones.

Similar pickups were parked in the yard of the temple last night, with many trays occupied by mourning workers from the Phanason construction site, where some of the dead had been employed.

Sitting nearby was A, aged 41, mother of the two young girls killed in Sunday's crash. Both girls, Chit, aged 12, and Nanja, aged 3, were Phuket children, both born on Phuket, in Patong Hospital.

A's husband, Sumai - the tragic grieving father pictured by Phuketwan in mourning at the scene of the crash - was later taken to hospital with neck injuries. He remains there today.

While Sumai, 42, took the couple's two girls to the Big Buddha yesterday to mark New Year's Day, A went to the market instead.

Soon after she returned to the Phanason camp at Baan Borrae in Vichit, she learned of the crash, and of the death of her daughters.

Phanason had allowed relatives of the deceased to not work today.

Last night, each of the six coffins was opened as friends and relatives said their final goodbyes. Prayers were offered, colored rugs and pillows were added before the coffins were taped shut.

A cremation ceremony is likely to follow on Tuesday or Wednesday for all except the youngest, three-year-old Nanja, whose coffin was kept separate last night.

She will be buried instead at Mai Khao cemetery, as is Burmese tradition for children under 10.

Thai Tongdan Pewjan, 41, driver of the pickup, was also farewelled last night and will be cremated with his luckless passengers.

The police officers who were pictured in Phuketwan carefully tracing the path of the pickup downhill into the killer bend are likely to press for rapid change to make the corner safer.

Police are usually the ones who point out road ''blackspots'' to authorities. An Australian tourist on honeymoon was killed 16 months earlier in a single-vehicle crash on the same bend.

Calls for change are also likely to come from the top of the hill. The not-for-profit Big Buddha Foundation has always made the safety of worshipers and tourists a priority and is likely to press authorities to widen the bend to prevent more tragedies.

The total Thailand tally of deaths for the ''seven days of danger'' was announced today by the DDPM as 271.

We know it was at least 272. We have no way of telling whether other ill-starred Burmese may also have been overlooked in death, as most of them are in life.