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Bangkok fire kills 59 New Year clubbers

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

Dozens of bodies wrapped in white cotton sheets lay on the pavement outside as fire crews moved in to douse the embers of the club on Ekkamai, a street popular with foreign revellers and high-society Thais.

A Thai fire official takes a picture of 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]

Many of the bodies were charred beyond recognition and the blaze had completely gutted the building. Rescue teams used pick-up trucks to ferry bodies from the scene.

Witness Tos Maddy, who estimated 400 people were packed inside the building, said he heard what he thought was an electrical explosion around 1230 a.m. (1730 GMT), followed by a stampede for the exits.

"Everything went boom and people started running. The fire went very quickly," he told Reuters.

Others described flames licking the ceiling before it caved in.

"I was in the bathroom and when I walked out, I saw flames in the roof and it fell to the floor," 28-year-old Montika Boontang told Reuters in the nearby Bangkok Hospital, where the majority of the injured were being treated.

Thanat Wongsanga, deputy chief of the nearby Thong Lor police station, said the cause of the blaze had not yet been determined. Local media said an electrical fault was probably to blame.

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