Three days after the grand opening of the 15-billion-baht Siam Paragon, Bangkok's newest luxury shopping centre was hit by a tragic accident when a 10-year-old girl fell five metres through a gap on the main floor to the floor below. Matarika Kijjapathoomsak, or ''Nong Meena'', visited Siam Paragon with her family on Monday night. While playing around a water garden on the main floor, the girl accidentally slipped through a space between a water garden and an elevator, dropping to the ground floor.

Surat Thani

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This seems to be the most interesting, non-discussed topic in this thread

on Siam Paragon.

My wife told me about this on monday - the news was on the Thai radio.

I searched for it tuesday in the english language press, but didn't seem to

make it there. It did make the local Thai TV news on tuesday night,

including pictures of the girl being taken away in an ambulance. It did

show up on Wednesday in both the Post and Nation, but the general theme

was that it was the parents fault for not watching their daughter. Both

articles go about discussing how there were plants put up as obstacles to

prevent these types of accidents (even though work was not complete in

that area).

Interesting, in a letter to the editor in the Post the same day, a witness

describes hearing the girl fall while in Starbucks, watching a guard go

over and pick the girl up (major no-no for that type of injury), and a

cleaning lady rushed in to mop up the blood. The letter writer then

describes investigating the upper floors and finding no guard barrier,

or any obstacle to prevent one from falling through a one meter gap in

the floor to a waterfall area (where supposedly the curious child was

prior to falling).

The money politics here is amazing. Seems like all the major publications

were shy to touch this one with a ten foot pole due to loss of potential

advertising revenues. My wife looked also related another fight-related

death outside the Paragon on the second day of opening. Further

poking around on the internet and stories of injuries and deaths, mostly

due to the 24/7 construction schedule to make the 2005 opening date.

It is amazing how low safety is on the list of concerns here. Until you

consider the neglect of responsibility here.

--dan

Three days after the grand opening of the 15-billion-baht Siam Paragon, Bangkok's newest luxury shopping centre was hit by a tragic accident when a 10-year-old girl fell five metres through a gap on the main floor to the floor below. Matarika Kijjapathoomsak, or ''Nong Meena'', visited Siam Paragon with her family on Monday night. While playing around a water garden on the main floor, the girl accidentally slipped through a space between a water garden and an elevator, dropping to the ground floor.

Surat Thani

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This seems to be the most interesting, non-discussed topic in this thread

on Siam Paragon.

It is amazing how low safety is on the list of concerns here. Until you

consider the neglect of responsibility here.

--dan

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just so you don't think us insensitive, there was a separate thread on this horrible accident. Some recent reports indicated that the young girl was doing better, and a full recovery was expected.

well the mall group alledgedly pay for positive press, hence many stories do not make it to press. It is interesting to note that the news program breaking the story expressly pointed out that they could not be silenced.

Consider it similar to other scandals...however regarding deaths, the only death I am aware of is 1 construction worker. There have been multiple injuries of which the child falling is one; for ANY mall the issue of someone or something falling over the rail is a big deal, and there is not much that can be done to stop it (witness the alleged suicides in many of the suburban shopping malls with kids leaping off the rail)... however in this case the understanding of most is that the rail was missing completely, and had been blocked off with a few plants in pots. hardly secure, but not much worse than some of the other things I saw in my walk through recently (exposed wiring, sharp corners, etc etc)_.

'Nuff respect to the watch experts out there; yes paragon does indeed have a pretty decent range of watches including most of the hand built ones... regarding value going up, Rolex collectables maybe good, but most of the appreciation is in the limited edition watches from the smaller manufacturers AFAIK.... For that market, Thailand is a MAJOR player worldwide..people have to spend their cash on something>!