The Sojourner
Economy Exposed.com
January 2, 2009 (revised January 5, 2009)

—

Eye Witness and Survivor

On January 1, 2009 just into the New and and Year, fireworks caused a fire, burning down one of the most famous clubs in Bangkok, Thailand.

People interviewed at the scene by Economy Exposed.com correspondents received news that second floor party goers noticed that the usually temperature controlled club began to get warm quickly noticing that there was a fire starting on the roof of the club, probably started by the fireworks that were fired inside the club in celebration of the party, at the time the singers on stage were completely unaware of the fire immediately above them and continued the show on the stage.

Our witness said that once she noticed the fire, she grabbed her boyfriend, told her friends, and they all headed for the only exit most patrons were aware of. As the party of seven were leaving, the fire lead the power to fail and created complete blindness to the patrons of the club, of the group of seven, only three of them made it out, the others, some students from Singaporean and Taiwan, did not make it out. Drunk, blind, and caught in a room of over a thousand people, some say close to fifteen hundred, on fire gives any individual a slim chance of survival. The crowd as it was, made it difficult to move, it was packed like a sardine can.

“Fire started dropping on us, the air was filled with fire”

Death Trap

This club is designed with a large main floor filled with tables and chairs with a slightly elevated level surrounding it. A second floor was placed surrounding the main floor located directly above the sounding elevated part of the main floor. This second floor has only one staircase to get up, designed to enter near the entrance of the club, however it wraps around the bar making the patrons sitting at the other end just about out of luck to get out alive.

There are two restrooms in the club; one is on the opposite side of the club and one of the farthest positions from the main entrance. The other set of restrooms are in a completely sealed basement closer to the main entrance but sealed with people all night long, another out of luck place to be in a time of panic. It has been reported that the construction of the building, specifically the roof, as many buildings in the city, made it quite easy for the cause of fire to occur.

Goodbye Party

This night was the last night for the club, as the club goers knew it. This night was extra packed and extra special because of a few reasons, one, it was New Year’s and this reason alone would pack any drinking establishment, two, this night was the last night before the club was set to close due to the expiry of the lease.

Results

Now there are talks of enforcing more regulations to clubs in the country. If they do their usual routine, they will use this, as a cash grab to fill their pockets of money from club owners not really concerned with the issue at hand, this will go on for a few months then it will be swept under the rug with the rest of the issues that get forgotten, we will see club closures for the next few months because of the new regulations that will be imposed over night giving club owners no time to make changes costing them a lot of money. The real greed economy is exposed once again.

The Survivors and Injured

The survivors and injured will be lucky to see much of a compensation. They have supposedly been given 20,000 Baht each, which is, at today’s exchange rate, just under 600 dollars for losses. The survivors and families of the deceased, when interviewed, were aware that the clubs had connections with the local police meaning that the police will not be much help at all. All locals know of the payments that clubs in the whole country have to pay to the local police. Ekamai in particular, is a no club zone. Santika as well as about half a dozen clubs in that particular area, are not permitted to be there as clubs, they are licensed as restaurants permitted to  only be opened till twelve midnight but will a little monetary assistance, they usually opened until two in the morning sometimes later, Economy exposed!

Death and Loss

Economy Exposed and all the staff would like to pay their respects to the families and friends of the people who lost their lives to this completely avoidable incident. Let us hope that this is the worst of the year and the year will only get better. Happy New Year to all.

Update: A seventeen year old was identified to be one of the dead bodies of the incident.

Update 2: The “pub” had no fire insurance due to lack of fire safety standards.

[PHOTOS: by Economy Exposed.com]