by Paul Rujopakarn

    

BANGKOK (NNT) - Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt has said a request will be submitted to the Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) for safety inspections of some 400 power lines and transformers in the capital after a fire on Sunday (26 June) killed two people in Sampeng market.

 

Chadchart said the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) will coordinate with the MEA on the inspections, while the MEA will collaborate with the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority and the police to determine the cause of the fire. He added that the BMA will expedite its underground cable operations as well as conduct random safety inspections of all buildings to prevent future fire incidents.

 

The Bangkok governor also urged the public to be vigilant for faulty transformers and cables and to notify emergency services immediately in the event of a fire.

 

According to district officials in Samphanthawong, one of the two victims was a foreign worker. The fire also damaged seven storefronts and three vehicles.

 

Thanes Weerasiri, president of the Engineering Institute of Thailand (EIT), said after a preliminary inspection of the damaged site that there was no solid evidence indicating that the transformer was responsible for starting the fire. He did not, however, rule out the possibility that the fire was caused by electrical and communication cables close to the transformer.

 

Officials estimated the initial cost of the damage in Sampheng to be approximately 30 million baht. They confirmed that the MEA would be liable if the fire was caused by the transformer, which had been in use for 20 years and undergone a safety inspection the previous year.

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2022-06-28

 

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I recall them doing that at least four times in the past 30 years. 

Representatives from the BMA, the MEA, the EIT, and several other agencies with even more letters to their titles have pledged to do everything in their power to leave no stone unturned, to investigate, scrutinise, sweep, sift, rake with a fine tooth comb, to find who is ultimately responsible, and to ensure these incidents are brought to a head.

Well.....they may do for about a week or so until some other failure creates a diversion.

As another poster has mentioned, over the years there has been countless incidents of these tragedies, and nothing has been done. This time will be no exception. The officials in charge will just melt into the background, again, and again.........

Why do I feel as if I've heard this line before? DayJahView all over again.

Simply regarding fire safety in general, my office building, some 31 floors, has had all but one ground floor doors mechanically blocked and closed for well over a year. One door for ingress and one door for egress. Not sure how a building could ever be cleared in the event of a fire through one door. I'm quite confident this was not only my building doing this. Just saying......

The regulations are there but the enforcement is not!

On 6/28/2022 at 1:30 PM, webfact said:

Thanes Weerasiri, president of the Engineering Institute of Thailand (EIT), said after a preliminary inspection of the damaged site that there was no solid evidence indicating that the transformer was responsible for starting the fire. He did not, however, rule out the possibility that the fire was caused by electrical and communication cables close to the transformer.

???? waffle anyone?