Terror in Bangkok
At least 19 die as huge bomb blast turns packed tourist hotspot into bloodbath
BOMBERS brought carnage to Bangkok yesterday after a blast killed at least 19 people and wounded scores more at a popular tourist spot.
A second device apparently targeting rescue workers was made safe before it could claim more lives.
But the initial blast turned the Erawan Shrine, a Hindu holy place in the heart of the Thai capital, into a bloodbath, with body parts strewn across the streets and survivors left with terrible injuries.
Hundreds of tourists were in the neighbouring area known for its shops and hotels when t he explosion was triggered at 7pm local time [noon GMT], the height of the rush hour.
Security video showed a powerful flash as the bomb exploded and then chaos as those that could ran for their lives while others began to tend the wounded.
No one had last night claimed responsibility for the blast, but a government official said it was targeted at tourists to undermine Thailand’s economy.
Four, including two Chinese and a Filipino, were reported to be among the dead. Because of the large number of appalling injuries, it is feared the death toll could rise.
One local media report suggested as many as 27 might have lost their lives. More than 120 were wounded.
‘It was like a meat market,’ said Marko Cunningham, a New Zealand paramedic working with a Bangkok ambulance service. ‘There were bodies everywhere. Some were shredded. It was horrific.’
Mr Cunningham added that people several hundred yards from the blast had been injured.
As the city centre was sealed off and Thailand’s government set up a ‘war room’, dozens of ambulances took the injured to hospitals. White sheets covered bodies beside the Erawan Shrine while charred motorcycles littered the bloodstained ground.
The shrine’s walls were splashed with blood. There were conflicting reports over whether the bomb had been hidden in a pipe smuggled in to the shrine and left under a bench or strapped to a motorcycle causing several passing cars to explode.
The Bangkok Post quoted police as saying that 3kilos of TNT had been stuffed in a pipe inside the shrine and an electronic circuit suspected to have been used in the attack was found 30 yards away. National police chief Somyot Poompummuang said: ‘Those who have planted this bomb are cruel. Everyone knows that at 7 pm the shrine is crowded with Thais and foreigners. Planting a bomb there means they want to see a lot of dead people.’
Defence minister Prawit Wongsuwon added that bombers had ‘targeted foreigners... to damage tourism and the economy’. He added: ‘We will hunt them down.’
Briton Lucinda- Jane Chastain told Sky News: ‘It was just this massive explosive noise. The whole building shook. All we can see is a horrible mess on the road.’
Richard Sri-kureja was walking to a shopping centre next to the shrine when he heard the huge explosion. He said: ‘There was total chaos. About five minutes later police and ambulances rushed to the scene. I counted around 20. That area is usually very crowded as it’s in the middle of the city. A local hotel is full of injured patients.’
British tourist Tamar Johnson, 20, was in a hotel bar when she heard the blast and i nitially thought it was a crack of thunder.
She told the BBC last night: ‘Then my mum phoned me from the hotel. She was shouting about a bomb so we sprinted back to our hotel.
‘It was chaos – people were running around and there were police and ambulances everywhere. We got back and met up with Mum and Dad – obviously it was a huge relief to see them again.’
While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, Thai forces are fighting a low-level Muslim insurgency in the predominantly Buddhist country’s south.
Thailand has also been riven by an intense and sometimes violent struggle for power between political factions and the army has been in control since May last year.
Last night the Foreign Office was not advising Britons against travelling to Bangkok.
‘We will hunt them down’