A lucky last-minute decision to use an overhead walkway saved the life of Australian rock star Jimmy Barnes and his family, a report said Tuesday.
Barnes, lead singer in the band Cold Chisel, his family and friends were on their way to a restaurant at the nearby Intercontinental Hotel when they had to decide the best way to cross the busy intersection.
Alan Parkhouse, a Bangkok Post sub-editor and friend of Barnes, told the Sydney Morning Herald he was walking with the group when they made the decision to use the overhead pass instead of walking past the crowded religious shrine - "a decision that probably saved our lives".
He said Barnes was talking about the forthcoming Australian tour of his band Cold Chisel on the walkway when the bomb went off.
"We had just walked right above the spot where the bomb had gone off and were about 50 metres away when the blast shook the walkway."
They knew it had to be a bomb and ran into the hotel. Barnes and the men in the group left the women and children in the foyer and went back.
"We were a safe distance away by now, but could see flames shooting up near the middle of the intersection we'd just walked over," Mr Parkhouse said.
Australian tourist John Murray told Sky News he was on the walkway overlooking the shrine and felt the full force of the explosion.
"It was like a shockwave though our bodies. I've never actually experienced anything so powerful like that ever," Murray said.
"Our ears were ringing, we hit the floor and there was shrapnel everywhere, smoke and people screaming."