Fire in Bangkok nightclub kills at least 54
Gah! That really sucks for them and their families. 
That’s tragic but unfortunately not terribly surprising.
I hope we hear from Siam Sam about this.
Unless his plane crashed, he should be just fine:
Siam Sam’s thread on his New Year’s planned getaway
He’s probably without his internet access right now, and having fits for not being able to post and reassure everybody.
I’m relieved he almost certainly wasn’t caught up in that nightclub tragedy.
Back in Bangkok. Safe and sound thanks, not even a plane crash :D. Mentioned this fire in my Rioting in the Streets thread. Yes, very sad, but safety concerns are minimal in Thailand, and I predict the well-connected owners will walk. 62 dead now, 243 injured. This below is what I wrote in the other thread, although this story is worth an extra mention, about teenagers showing up trying to take photos of ghosts:
**"Back in town. No untoward incidents of violence on New Year’s Eve after all, which is good. Unfortunately, there was a pub fire caused by an inside pyrotechnic display, which sounds odd to me but is apparently both done and hard to do. The death toll rose to 62 yesterday (Saturday) the last I heard. 243 injured. Santika Pub. Ironically, it was the pub’s last night before moving to another location, so the theme of the party was “Goodbye, Santika.” :rolleyes: The police have ruled out arson, because the club’s insurance expired four months ago (another :rolleyes:). I guess they didn’t want to reinsure with just four months left. Santika seems to have been operating illegally in a number of ways, which is par for the course.
"The police have come out with a list of charges the pub owner will face, but really, no one expects anything to come of it. Supposedly, the owner belongs to a high-society family with connections to the police. All of the club owners here, indeed anyone in the entertainment industry, have some sort of connection to the police. Safety issues are not a major concern here, and whenever an incident like this happens, it’s very difficult to bring anyone to justice. I expect the owner will just walk. Sad, but that’s simply the way it is over here.
“Stories here, here and here. Many foreigners among the dead and injured. The second link above is an odd one in that it relates how lots of teenagers showed up at the scene eager to take pictures at 2am this morning, because of a belief that the dead will return to the scene of their demise after three days. They want pictures of ghosts, and any weird line in the photo they’ll believe is one.”**
:smack: I did not copy over the links i that first sentence. What I meant was: Stories here, here and here.
BBC TV just reported the police were going to go ahead and press charges against the owner, who was offering tearful apologies to the victims’ families. Asshole. What was he saying I wonder, something like: “I’m so sorry I operated illegally and paid off the police and had no fire exits and blew off insurance and set off fireworks inside my club even though I had no idea how to do it properly”? Something like that I guess. I suspect the police will have to make a show of doing something just because of the worldwide publicity this incident has garnered, but at the end of the day I don’t hold out hope that anything substantial will be accomplished. The usual schtick is make a big show at the beginning, then once it finally dies down, let the perp go, usually after a large cash payment to the, um, police benevolence fund. This is a prime example of why there are so many professional and semi-pro hitmen in Thailand; that’s often a first resort in a business dispute, let alone revenge.
I’ve also since learned that the club’s soundproofing in the ceiling was of a type that was extremely flammable.
And there’s been another fire in Bangkok, last night (Sunday night), in a residential/shopping complex in the Phahurat area of Bangkok. Story here. One dead and 47 injured. Thais are extremely superstitious, and they’re already gossiping about what all of this foretells for the year. (It’s being seriously bandied about that the main cause of the Santika Pub fire was the fact that a huge, one-story high cross adorned the upper wall of the club as a decoration; supposedly God or Jesus was smiting sinners for using it as a bar decoration.)
And I just found out last night (Monday night) that there was another fire! Rawhide Bar in Soi Cowboy, early last Friday morning. After closing, so no casualties. It’s three stories high, but only the ground floor is the bar area. A Christmas decoration shorted out. Minor damage. Some of the girls do opt to live upstairs for convenience, but apparently they all escaped unscathed, although some of their belongings may have suffered some smoke damage. This is turning into a real fire year!
Well, THIS sucks. In this story in today’s (Wednesday’s) newspaper, the very first sentence is: “Police are still working to decide whether anyone should be held responsible for the Santika Pub fire, which killed 64 people and injured 100 others.”
What the …??? Trying to decide if anyone should be held responsible??? I do believe I hear the distinctive sound of a money payoff somewhere in the background.
BTW: That’s a mistake about the “100 injured.” It’s actually 100 still in the hospital. With the death toll at 64, that makes the injury count 238 now.
There’s a good story on this in The Times of London. See here.
The main owner of Santika Pub surrendered to police yesterday (Tuesday) after an arrest warrant was issued for him and one other man. Story here. I still doubt much will come of this, but I hope it does.
An update. They’ve arrested the lead singer of the band that was playing at Santika Pub that night. I’m sure it was probably mentioned in some of the links before, but the band’s name is Burn. How ironic! The singer’s arrested because it looks like the band’s going to have to take the blame for the indoor fireworks show. Story here.
I can’t find a link, but it’s in the news now that the “co-owner” mentioned in the post above who turned himself in already – he’s also been called the “general manager” – actually turns out to be nothing more than a parking valet assigned to take the rap. And a high-level police official, a deputy superintendent, has been found to be a major shareholder in the club. Oddly, as soon as he bought shares in the club, police raids for various infractions suddenly stopped; there had been 47 raids before the cop became a shareholder. Hmmm.
A good update here, from The Telegraph in England, about how police have tried to protect their guitly colleagues in the fire.
There’s an interesting update here: Disturbing Details in Thai blaze Inquiry.
Excerpt: **"But a parallel investigation set up by the Ministry of Justice revealed far more disturbing details. The Santika, it turned out, was licensed as a private residence, not a club.
"It was operating in a zone where nightclubs were banned. The city architect’s signature approving the building design had been forged.
"And because it was officially just a house - despite being one of Bangkok’s best-known and most conspicuous nightclubs - there had been no fire safety inspections.
"The place was a death-trap.
"This inquiry discovered something else. The owners of the Santika had applied in 2004 for a licence to operate as an entertainment venue, but had been refused by the police.
"The police filed 47 charges of operating illegally against the club owners from June 2004 until 17 September 2006.
“But after that date there was no further police action against the club, one of whose recent shareholders, clearly listed in company documents, is a senior police officer, Colonel Prayont Lasua.”**