By Nopporn Wong-Anan SUKSAMRAN, Thailand, April 10 (Reuters) - It was meant to be a short trip across the border for a job and better life in Thailand.

Instead, Win feels lucky to be alive after escaping the hot, cramped container truck where 54 other Myanmar migrant workers suffocated on Wednesday night.

"If I had known I would have ended up like this, I would not have come back," said the 30-year-old who survived by peeling a rubber seal off a container door to let air inside after the refrigeration system broke down.

"If I had not peeled off the rubber seal, more people would have died," he told Reuters from a police cell where 63 survivors waited to appear in court on Friday for illegal entry.

Win, who was returning to a construction job on the southern resort island of Phuket after seeing his family in Myammar, said the 120 migrants stood "shoulder to shoulder" in the 2.5 metre by a 20-foot (6 metres) freezer container for several hours.

After the 10-wheeled truck left the Thai border town of Ranong at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, the workers used mobile phones to talk to the driver, asking him to adjust the air conditioning.

Fourty five minutes later, the refrigeration unit broke down. Then they lost the mobile phone signal as the truck drove through narrow hills and into valleys.

"If there had been air-con, people would not have died," he said of the victims, which included a nine-year-old girl.

Police said 37 of the dead were women.

"From 8:45 p.m., people started passing out. All of us who were still conscious banged on the driver's cabin very hard to get him to stop, but he didn't," said Win, who has a 15-month-old daughter in Myanmar.

When the driver stopped the truck at around 10 p.m., the survivors managed to kick open the back door and run for help.

"We saw a brightly-lit house and ran toward it, shouting "help, help!," Win said.

Police were still searching for driver who fled the scene.

More than one million people from neighbouring army-ruled Myanmar are estimated to work in Thailand, most of them illegally in factories, restaurants, at petrol pumps, and as domestic helpers or crew on fishing trawlers.

They are usually hidden under goods such as vegetable or fruit in small or big overloaded trucks, leading to tragic road accidents.

Win said he paid a broker 5,000 baht ($160) to take him from the Myanmar border town of Kawthaung to Phuket, a 400 km journey.

Win said he crossed at the Thai border town of Ranong using a pass which allows locals from both countries to visit for one week, but they must stay within a 15-km radius.

Win said his life as a welder at construction sites in Phuket was better than many other migrant workers.

He earned at least 250 baht a day, twice what he could make in Myanmar's crumbling economy after 46 years of military rule, and saved 50,000 baht from working in Phuket.

"With a wife and a child, we would not have enough to eat if I worked at home," said Win, who now faces deportation with the rest of the truck survivors. ($1=31.58 baht) (Editing by Darren Schuettler and Bill Tarrant)

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