Bomb blasts rock Thailand
Attacks on beach cities leave four dead and dozens injured
AN HOUR before midnight, Andrea Tazzioli was fetching his own birthday cake, looking forward to celebrating with friends in the balmy beach resort town of Hua Hin, a world away from his stressful military work in Afghanistan. Then the bomb went off.
“I saw light, white light, big explosion and immediately it hurts here in my shoulder, like big fire. And I go down on the floor in blood. Everyone was screaming, the glass broken, table broken, confusion,” the Italian said yesterday from a hospital bed, a place where he never expected to turn 51.
While Tazzioli recovered from blast wounds, other tourists huddled in their hotel rooms, locked down after bombs exploded in at least five areas of Thailand, including popular beach cities, killing at least four people and wounding dozens more.
British tourist Darren Hilling was lounging by his hotel pool in Hua Hin when a pair of blasts shook the morning calm.
The Thursday night blast in which Tazzioli was hurt also killed a street vendor and wounded 20 other people in this beach city about 200km south-west of Bangkok. The 24 injured included Thais, three Germans and other visitors from Italy, Austria and the Netherlands.
Overnight on Thursday and into yesterday, bombs also went off on Phuket’s Loma Beach in southern Thailand and the southern provinces of Trang, Surat Thani and Phang Nga. One person was killed in the Trang blast on Thursday, and another was killed in the Surat Thani attack yesterday morning.
Police said it was too soon to say who was behind the attacks, but added that they have ruled out international terrorism or a long-running insurgency in the country’s Islamic south.
Phuket is frequented by millions of European, Chinese and Thai tourists each year who come to swim in the warm, azure sea, party at the open-air night clubs and explore tropical rainforests. The other towns hit are less prominent international destinations but still popular among Thais and many foreigners.
Even as police searched for suspects and fears of more bombs continued, locals said the explosions will be a blow to tourism, a critical source of income. Governments including the US, Germany, Australia and Britain advised their citizens travelling in Thailand to take precautions.
Thailand’s economy has struggled since a 2014 military coup; investors grew wary and have stayed away, but tourists have returned. More than 14 million people visited from January to May this year, up from 12.5 million the year before.
The latest terror came less than a week after voters approved a new, junta-backed constitution.