Bangkok fire kills 59 New Year clubbers

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-01 15:24

Thai rescuers carry bodies of victims of a fire that ripped through a nightclub in Bangkok on January 1, 2009. [Agencies]

The Health Ministry's emergency centre said 59 people had been killed and 184 people had been injured.

The dead Sigaporean man was identified as Teo Sze Siong, but forensic experts were unable to identify at least 30 bodies as they had no identification documents with them, doctors said.

Foreigners treated in hospitals included those from Japan, Australia, the Netherlands and France, police said.

Among the most critical was a 25-year-old Japanese man who suffered a 40 percent burn and was in an intensive care unit.

Policemen and rescue workers look at the bodies of victims outside Santika nightclub in Bangkok January 1, 2009. A blaze at the top Bangkok nightclub killed at least 58 people celebrating the New Year on Thursday and injured more than 100 others, rescue workers and witnesses said.[Agencies]

Bangkok's nightspots, some of which can accommodate several thousand people, have often been the subject of safety concerns, although they have been incident-free for the last five years.

The Thai capital was hit two years ago on New Year's Eve by a series of small explosions in which several people were killed and dozens injured.

The blasts were blamed variously on fallout from the 2006 coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Muslim militants who have waged a separatist rebellion in Thailand's southernmost provinces since 2003.

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