THAILAND Survivors have recalled how revellers shoved and trampled on screaming victims to escape the New Year fire at a packed Bangkok club, as police tried to piece together how about 60 people died.
Newspapers carried harrowing accounts of the scenes of panic and fear inside the Santika nightclub in the Thai capital ’s popular Ekkamai district, where more than 200 people including three Australians were also injured in the blaze early Thursday.
Mourners some with coffins of victims in the back of trucks trickled to the club to pray and to give offerings to the dead, while scores of people including foreigners remained in hospital after the tragic night.
Thanawut Santhong, who lost three friends, told the Bangkok Post newspaper that fire broke out within an hour of revellers ringing in the New Year.
He said each guest was given a sparkler to light up during the countdown to 2009, but suddenly smoke engulfed the club and all the lights went out.
"People were in panic after the blackout," he said. "The situation became worse as people screamed fire ’ and tried to escape." He recalled party-goers crying, screaming, pushing and stepping on top of one another as they struggled to steer a way through the few doors out of the club, while flames rained down on people ’s hair and clothes from the ceiling.
Early reports by police suggested the inferno might have been caused by a fireworks display on stage soon after the New Year countdown, but officials said they were still investigating.
"The deputy national police chief chaired a meeting yesterday and laid out guidelines for police to investigate how the fire broke out," said case officer Lieutenant Colonel Prawit Kangwol.
"The assumptions are a short circuit or small fireworks that triggered the fire inside the club." Deputy national police commissioner General Jongrak Jutanont said insurance fraud had been ruled out as a motive but that police had since 2004 refused Santika an operational licence because of safety concerns.
The club management had been seeking an injunction from the administrative court, and was allowed to remain open while the case progressed.
Emergency services headquarters secretary Chatree Charoencheewakul said the latest death toll was 59,~ with 86 of the injured still in hospital. Thirty-eight remain in intensive care. AFP
