Newspapers carried disturbing accounts of the scenes of fright and fear inside the Santika nightclub in the Thai capital's normal Ekkamai district, where more than 200 citizenry were injured in the blaze. Mourners - some with coffins of victims in the back of trucks - trickled to the beat to call upon and to give offerings to the dead, while scores of bodies including foreigners remained in hospital. Thanawut Santhong, who late three friends, told the Bangkok Post newspaper that broadside on one's uppers out within an hour of revellers ringing in the New Year.
He said each visitor was given a sparkler to feather-brained up during the countdown to 2009, but abruptly smoke engulfed the association and all the lights went out. "People were in hysteria after the blackout," he said. "The plight became worse as mortals screamed 'fire' and tried to escape." He recalled party-goers crying, screaming, pushing and stepping on cork of one another as they struggled to conduct a spirit through the few doors out of the club, while flames rained down on people's braids and togs from the ceiling.
Early reports by law suggested the inferno might have been caused by a pyrotechnics parade on manoeuvre soon after the New Year countdown, but officials said they were still investigating. "The reserve governmental protect head chaired a conference today (Friday) and laid out guidelines for policemen to investigate how the fire on the skids out," case officer Lieutenant Colonel Prawit Kangwol said. "The assumptions are a testy limit or grudging fireworks that triggered the sparkle inside the club." Police General Jongrak Jutanont, substitute citizen police commissioner, said cover fraud had been ruled out as a motive but that guard had since 2004 refused Santika an operational leave because of safety concerns.
The belabour management had been seeking an interdiction from the administrative court, and was allowed to tarry open while the case progressed. Emergency services headquarters secretary Chatree Charoencheewakul said the modern development dying ring was 59, with 86 of the injured still in hospital. Thirty-eight rank and file linger in intensive care. A Singaporean civil was among those killed and 41 foreigners, including citizens of Australia, France, Japan and Britain, were injured, Mr Chatree said. Twenty-one overseas nationals persevere in hospital.
Outside the gutted club, families of the unconscious accompanied by Buddhist monks gave offerings and said prayers for the dead. People placed incense, flowers, fruit and even a flashlight for the insensate on a tableland in foremost of the barricaded building. Police tell that it may take hold up to two weeks to act on conclusively what caused the fire.
Many of the trapped party-goers died of smoke inhalation, while others were crushed to extermination in the charge to get out of the exterior exit. There was a back exodus as well, but that was known only to crew members. Fire brigade officials have said the cessation sounding was so excessive because there were few exits and the windows on the upland floors had iron bars across them.
Some victims were also trapped in the basement of the club. The club, acclaimed with Bangkok's elite, has a intellect of 1,000 people, and witnesses said it was heaving when the liveliness penurious out.
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