Fire At Santika Night Club

[Miserere]

Will the government change the law now to ensure all public areas have adequate fire exits etc?....no.

Money is more important than lives in Thailand.

In fact a week from now this will all be forgotton and it will be business as usual from Saturday.

[imaneggspurt]

This is awful news,.already sounding like lack of fire exits are to blame for most deaths/injuries,.something else we must be aware of in the los, safety standards are not from the west,. R.I.P to these very unfortunate people,.

[Goshawk]

more news footage posted on the YouTube site can be seen here

[p_brownstone]

What sort of half-moron sets off fireworks inside a crowded building?

Of course we can already imagine the headlines tomorrow "BMA launches crackdown on safety at entertainment venues" .

Shutting the stable door as usual.

Patrick

[TheRavens]

While this truly is a tragedy I'm not that surprised. Thai people have no idea about safety

May the victims RIP.

[neverdie]

Very sad indeed. RIP

[MJo]

Truly horrible tragedy. God bless all the victims and their families.

One can just hope the authorities and club owners will learn from this and prevent this happening again.

[Wolfie]

Very sad indeed, hopefully the authorities will start taking things more seriously now regarding fire and safety regulations.

[Gary A]

The saddest thing is that just 30 minutes of safety training for the staff could have opened other exits and greatly helped the evacuation. We see this sort of disaster far too often here in Thailand.

My condolences for the families who lost loved ones.

[AnthonyR1]

horrible news. horrible start to 2009 to the families and loved ones of those who died. my deepest condolences.

i'm still a bit shocked! been there a few times, know people that go there, etc.... awful awful news

[Wrong Turn]

Santika Club at Ekamai was on fire during the New Year celebration - early reports have at least 50 injured, and up to 50 dead.

I could see the flames from my window - needless to say they were fierce.

Where is Santika located in BKK?

[farang prince]

This tragedy eerily reminds me of the fire in a New Jersey nightclub about 15 years ago that also killed several hundred people. The cause of that fire was fireworks that set a stage curtain on fire. So it just doesn't happen in Thailand. But in the United States, at least, laws were enacted to prevent this from ever happening again. We will see if this follows suit in Thailand.

[petedk]

This is truly a tradegy and my thoughts go out to the victims and relatives.

While this truly is a tragedy I'm not that surprised. Thai people have no idea about safety

May the victims RIP.

Too true.

We live just a few minutes walk from Santika and could easily have been there last night.

Instead we chose to go to Koh Chang.

There was a firework display on the beach and people stood as close as 2 or 3 metres from the actual fireworks. I was telling my friends how dangerous it was when one of the rockets must have fallen over and exploded. A young foreign girl was obviously hit by something but luckily it didn't seem too bad because I saw her dancing again 10 minutes later.

At the same party people were lighting Roman Candles and firing directly into the strong wind. Many of the fireballs were blown straight back into the crowds.

[petedk]

9.30 Now and nothing is being shown on Thai TV.

[Scott]

My condolences to the family and friends of the dead and injured. These things are always very sad. The combination of alcohol, holidays and large numbers of people make these tragedies happen throughout the world.

[soundman]

Most of killed victims of pub fire are foreigners: deputy police chief

Deputy Police Commissioner-General Pol Lt-Gen Jongrak Juthanon said most of those killed in the Santika Pub fire were foreigners.

He said they were tourists from Nepal, Austria and Japan.

The Nation

[Kerryd]

This tragedy eerily reminds me of the fire in a New Jersey nightclub about 15 years ago that also killed several hundred people. The cause of that fire was fireworks that set a stage curtain on fire. So it just doesn't happen in Thailand. But in the United States, at least, laws were enacted to prevent this from ever happening again. We will see if this follows suit in Thailand.

Not likely.

When Route 66 burnt down in Pattaya awhile ago, people said the same thing. Maybe the authorities will finally do something. Nothing has changed.

(At Route 66, many people died because the emergency exits were chained and pad-locked shut, to prevent people from sneaking out.)

One only has to look around various other establishments (Lucifers in Pattaya springs to mind) to realize that there are many more similar disasters just waiting to happen. It's not just nightclubs either, but hotels, condos and other establishments, built without any thought being put into fire escapes, fire detection or fire suppression equipment.

A sad start to the New Year.

[britmaveric]

Lucifer's is a prime fire trap if there ever was one.... every time I have been in there I comment that if a fire ever started here we'd be fked.

[bangon04]

One only has to look around various other establishments (Lucifers in Pattaya springs to mind) to realize that there are many more similar disasters just waiting to happen. It's not just nightclubs either, but hotels, condos and other establishments, built without any thought being put into fire escapes, fire detection or fire suppression equipment.

A sad start to the New Year.

But this time it is possible that Thai Hi-So people die with foreigner, so police under pressure. Much more important than Happy New Year road slaughter...

[JRinger]

Very sad indeed, hopefully the authorities will start taking things more seriously now regarding fire and safety regulations.

Surely you jest ?

funds will be 'allocated' for a special committee to investigate this terrible story, etc., with meetings in Hong Kong, etc....but those who have lived here long enough know better than to believe any 'real' action will take place

Edited January 1, 2009 by JRinger

[animatic]

Very, very sad. RIP the many victims.

And may the injured have speedy recoveries.

I saw a lot of fireworks last night,

and saw a disproportoionate amount explode on the ground,

shooting out stuff in all directions. It was pure luck no one was injured

on the open beach or multiple ajoining beach pubs.

And people just kept on lighting more from the same batch

and they would do the same again.

Lighting this stuff inside a building with 700-1000 people is criminal IMO.

I once worked a weekend in The Station in Rhode Island.

I thought it was a fire trap then and that was years before it burned.

If I had seen ANYONE setting up a flash pan there I would have refused to work.

I didn't like it and refused to go back again.

So stupid, unnecessary and so sad.

RIP.

[wamberal]

Lucifer's is a prime fire trap if there ever was one.... every time I have been in there I comment that if a fire ever started here we'd be fked.

So, why do you go there?

If potential customers boycotted venues with obvious safety problems, things would soon get fixed.

[britmaveric]

^I don't anymore - have a look for 5min, then leg it out. Too crowded (wall to wall people whcih fire hazard of itself) Course not a problem lately since tourists are way down - place is empty lot of the times.

[nickynomates]

This is so sad.

If as reported the majority of deaths are foreigners on top of everything else it may just make a few people open their eyes.

Fire drills happen and are monitored especially in manufacturing plants after the Kader doll factory fire that killed 188 people in 1993. But these like everything else are so fixed and just go through the motions.

People pay their money and expect a degree of safety where it be theme park boat ride or public house.

Sadly attention of the road deaths will go away for a while with this news.

[STEELINOX]

Once again, Muang Thai, as usual, fails to disappoint on the level of travesty. Its on all the National and Local Networks here in the US. And in a few weeks this will be forgotten. As someone said, its all about the "Mighty Baht" and its "Power" to cause everyone to lose their minds when it comes to common sense. Sheese, what will LOS do next !

Sad. RIP.

[taxexile]

People pay their money and expect a degree of safety

you only have to look around in this country to see that how ever much you pay to enter a night club , restaurant , bar , shopping mall etc.etc.etc. safety is the one thing you will not get.

thais seem to have an inborn aversion to anything safe , maybe its a gene or maybe its a state of mind or possibly its just the stupidity of the superstition that if you think about or mention the possibility of something bad happening ( and then by default take some precautions against it happening ) then the chances of it happening increase, but there is no awareness or consideration of safety at all in this , and many other countries in the region.

add into the mix selective enforcement of regulations and standards and the lack of awareness by people in crowded places and its a wonder that these things arent happening more frequently.

[mistresserika]

Terrible tragedy.

[Westerner]

From the BBC News website...

"At least 53 people have been killed in a fire in a nightclub in the Thai capital, Bangkok, police said, quoted by Reuters news agency.

More than 100 others were injured in the blaze, which broke out as people took part in New Year's Eve celebrations, the agency reports.

A Thai police official told Reuters the cause had not yet been determined.

A witness told the BBC that he had seen a number of bodies being carried away from the club, named as the Santika.

The witness, Andrew Jones, said survivors leaving the club told him the fire broke out on the stage after fireworks were lit just after midnight.

He said the club was popular with foreigners and locals alike.

The club had only one main exit, at the front, and many people had been trapped inside, he said. "

link to page here

When will they learn??? This is so tragic and what a horrible start to the New Year.

[STEELINOX]

People pay their money and expect a degree of safety

add into the mix selective enforcement of regulations and standards and the lack of awareness by people in crowded places and its a wonder that these things arent happening more frequently.

Its all in the "odds" of it happening and since we know full well that these "Clubs" overcrowd at EVERY opportunity which really is not that high in frequency, then throw into the mix the, what I call, "Numbskull Factor" ~ in this case the adding of fireworks as a "multiplier" increases the probability for catastrophe exponentially; man, its not rocket science !

[skippybangkok]

Very sad indeed, hopefully the authorities will start taking things more seriously now regarding fire and safety regulations.

Surely you jest ?

funds will be 'allocated' for a special committee to investigate this terrible story, etc., with meetings in Hong Kong, etc....but those who have lived here long enough know better than to believe any 'real' action will take place

Agreed......

Make a regulation, dont enforce it, and then extort the shit out of the owners when things go wrong. Experienced one unsucessful case of extortion from the Tax department years back ( which ended up being a dud - they made a mistake), must say they were good at it.

Like vultures ready to swoop in.