SMOKE, THEN AN EXPLOSION AND FIRE
Looking inside the bar, an AFP reporter saw a row of stools and bottles of beer still on tables covered with white dust.
The smell of burned plastic lingered over the area several hours after the fire broke out, while most of the windows of the bar were blown out.
A small crowd of people gathered behind the cordon of metal barricades and police tape, some of them in their pyjamas.
Thai national police said in a social media post at around 2am Monday that the fire had been „brought under control“.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul had earlier visited the scene.
He said musicians at the venue described „smoke from a circuit breaker near the stage followed by the power going out and an explosion“.
„Most of the victims ran to the back, to toilets with no exit. It could be because of panic because there was fire and smoke in the restaurant,“ Anutin told reporters.
He gave the same death toll, 27, while local police also confirmed to AFP the same number.
A band member at the venue told local media that smoke suddenly filled the room after the lights briefly went out, followed by a massive explosion and fire.
„After the explosion I didn’t see anybody trying to run, most of them were on the floor asking for help,“ he told reporters, his head still bandaged, without giving his name.
„I ran towards the door from the stage, about five metres. It was dark and there was smoke, no oxygen.“
Thailand’s lax approach to health and safety regulations – particularly in its bars and nightclubs – has long raised concerns.
Twenty-five people died after a fire ripped through the Mountain B nightclub in Thailand’s eastern Chonburi province in 2022.
A huge fire tore through a New Year’s Eve party at Bangkok’s Santika club in 2009, killing 67 people and injuring more than 200.
