Holidaymakers burnt as fireworks display goes wrong at resort

TOURISTS attending a full moon party in southern Thailand on New Year’s Eve were left with burns when a pyrotechnic display showered revellers with red-hot embers.

Footage of the incident on the popular backpacker island of Koh Phangan was posted online, showing how cheers turned to screams of panic as a giant sign reading “Happy New Year 2017” was set alight at midnight.

Sparks could be seen raining down on the crowd, aided by an onshore breeze.

Witnesses described mass panic as people scrambled to get out of the way of the display.

“It was just like a shower of burning sparks,” British tourist Lucy Coyle, 20, said.

“It felt like people were stabbing you with pins all over your body. Everyone was trying to get out.”

Coyle later posted pictures on Twitter of what she said were dozens of burns across her body.

Fellow Briton Freddie Jacobs, 23, said thousands were crammed onto the beach at the stroke of midnight, many under a sign they had no idea was about to be set alight.

“My girlfriend fell to the floor, she was getting so many burns I had to cover her like a blanket,” he said.

He and his partner were covered in burns the next day, Jacobs said.

Backpackers flock to Koh Phangan for its famously raucous full moon parties.

But its laid-back charm belies an equally relaxed attitude to safety.

Police confirmed the incident but played down tourist reports of injuries and mass panic.

“One female tourist aged around 30 was slightly injured. She was treated and went away,” island police chief Colonel Somchai Noppasri said.

Meanwhile, a minivan and a bakkie, both packed with passengers, collided in Thailand yesterday, killing 25 people in a harrowing reminder of the country’s dangerous roads.

Police said the minivan driver lost control and ploughed through a central reservation into oncoming traffic in the eastern province of Chonburi. Both vehicles burst into flames. “Twenty-five people were killed,” provincial police chief Lieutenant Colonel Wiroj Jamjamras said. Two toddlers were among the dead.

Wiroj said 15 people were inside the minivan while 12 passengers were packed into the bakkie. Only two survived. Footage broadcast on TV news showed firefighters tackling burning, twisted wreckage.

Despite relatively good infrastructure, Thailand has the world’s second most dangerous roads in terms of per capita deaths, according to data collected by the World Health Organisation in a 2015 report.

Fatalities tend to rise in the New Year week and during a religious festival in April.

Both weeks are dubbed the Seven Deadly Days in Thai media, with the government keeping a daily death tally during the periods to try to encourage better road safety.

As of Sunday – fourth day of the country’s New Year holiday week – 280 people had died on Thailand’s roads, a 10% increase on last year.

Some 43% of the recorded smashes involved drunk driving and 82% involved motorbikes.