Bangkok, July 15:
The death toll from a huge fire in a Bangkok music bar has increased to 30, officials said Tuesday, as the investigation proceeded while relatives of the victims took on the task of identifying their loved ones and retrieving their bodies.
More than 70 people were injured, with 24 of them still in critical condition, according to a statement by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. Initial details about the victims, which have not been updated since Monday, said 18 of the dead were women and nine were men, all Thai except one bar employee from Laos. The injured included 41 women and 34 men.
The blaze at the Rong Beer Na Ladprao bar, the city’s deadliest in 17 years, broke out shortly before midnight in a northern part of the Thai capital. Firefighters needed half an hour to bring it under control. The bar claimed to accommodate as many as 600 customers.
It was not clear how many were present Sunday night. An investigation into the fire’s cause and whether the bar was following safety regulations is ongoing. Most people who were killed were found trapped in windowless bathrooms where they may have tried to escape the flames, police said.
Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said Tuesday he has ordered the city’s administration to do a sweeping survey of such establishments to assess risks. The city will step up enforcement of existing laws to improve safety standards, he said.
Former patrons of the bar and other mourners visited the site Tuesday, adding to the growing pile of flowers leaning on the guardrails cordoning off the location of the blaze.
Handwritten messages in Thai and other languages were left alongside white flowers, expressing condolences to the victims. Debris from the bar lay scattered along the sidewalk, moved there Monday by officials investigating the cause of the fire.