SANTIKA PUB FIRE
Setting the record straight about a horrific tragedy
- Published: 7/01/2009 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: News
I am the guy in the photographs and films in the white shirt covered in blood dragging people out of the window by the main door and the smoking lounge.
The fire at the Santika pub on Ekamai road shortly after the New Year left 59 dead and at least 243 injured. The blaze broke out in the early hours of Jan 1 while some 1,000 revellers were celebrating New Year’s Eve and bidding farewell to the pub, which was to be closed after the ‘‘Goodbye Santika’’ party.
I would actually like to take exception to the comments made by some of the press and armchair critics in all forums and to defend some of the people accused of what was a tragic accident.
I think you are all forgetting that this was an accident and it was actually the stampede and the panic that caused the problem for the majority, resulting in the deaths that occurred.
The owner was with us for the whole time, helping us get people out of the club and to say he has crocodile tears or something similar is a gross misrepresentation of a very concerned man and someone I know very well who put his life on the line along with the rest of the helpers (less than 15 people, by the way, out of the 800 or so people who remained outside and felt it better to get their phone cameras out than to help the dying people at the club).
There are also claims that the fire crews could not get to the club for up to 45 minutes. The girls in the toilets, who included one of my best friends, were rescued within 25 minutes as she remained on the phone with her boyfriend throughout the whole ordeal and it took 21 minutes from start to finish of that phone call to when the fire brigade reached them.
In that time the club had burned as much as it was going to, as the emergency services were flooding the place (in a completely disorganised way) and the people in full rescue gear could take over.
The club was my local haunt and the owner is a close personal friend of mine. He is distraught and completely at odds with what has happened. However, I do think the record should be set straight on this, as the people at the club rightly say that the club was engulfed within seconds of the fire starting.
My own theory on this is that the bottles of alcohol on the tables significantly worsened the effect as the heat rose in the club. This is a common feature of Bangkok and all Asian nightclubs, where the alcohol is kept by the customer on their table. Basically, each and every table has a Molotov cocktail on it in a situation of this nature and I witnessed first-hand the bottles exploding as the heat from the fire reached them. I believe this is what caused the majority of the burns and the speed with which the fire spread, regardless of materials used at the club. Within 90 seconds the club was engulfed - now who do you wish to blame for this?
The start was probably by either the pyrotechnic display on the stage or the sparklers and firecrackers which the customers had brought with them. The outside effects, I seriously doubt, could have caused the problem, as being outside by the front of the club no embers came our way from that main display. This use of firecrackers and sparklers is another Thai/Asian tradition. Inside the club it probably set the alcove by the stage on fire, which quickly spread to the upper area of the club which was a mosaic created from gypsum board. However, as the heat descended the bottles started to explode and covered everything in their vicinity in highly flammable liquid.
My friends and I (including the owner), who were outside when the fire started, only noticed the problem inside when the clubbers started to stream through the side and main doors. Again, just to set the record straight, there were three exits and they were all used by the escapees.
The problem was the panic and stampede and the lack of emergency lighting in the club, although I seriously doubt that this would have had any benefit as the club was engulfed in thick, black, acrid smoke that fell immediately onto the floor and caused a lot of the deaths by smoke inhalation.
Downstairs in the toilet area, each toilet was connected to the outside as they are open to the elements; however the boardwalk above covered any means of escape. We did manage to get through that (this is where the owner was ripping his way through to try and reach the toilet area) and rescue the people from the men's and women's toilet areas, again a misreport. My friend Jic was in the ladies' toilet and I sent two firemen down to reach her after they sprayed water on the club entrance area. They chain-led four girls from the toilet and saved them, others were pulled up from the now open boardwalk area at the side of the club.
There was myself, another two foreign guys and about 8-10 Thai guys (mostly staff) who risked going back in; everyone else (a symptom of Thai society) decided that they should take their camera phones out and start filming.
I have to say I am very disappointed in the press and media who were on the scene faster than the emergency services and who got in the way, as you can see from the films. Again, another symptom of the age we live in, when capturing a person's death on your digital device so you can sell it to the press for a few baht, is more important than saving that life.
I do not want recognition for this - all I ask is that the facts are reported correctly. I was frontline and tried to save as many people as possible. There are images I will never forget from going back into the club. This is, and always has been, my favourite place in Bangkok and it was a tragedy which probably could have been lessened but not prevented due to the reasons I have stated.
As for the problems regarding the licensing, etc, let's all be realistic and show we know how this works in Thailand. We all know enforcement or the lack thereof is a paid-for service within this community and that the "tea money" covers a lot of misdemeanours and also protection.
The authorities act as a semi-legal mafia and these sort of protection rackets are an everyday occurrence here; that is not to say that a lot of policemen and emergency services don't risk their own lives. But the facts should come out.
I really would like to set the record straight on this, as the emergency services - while completely disorganised due to the lack of a consensus in Bangkok and Thailand as a whole (this is a point for a much longer conversation on how to ensure organisation is maintained, which is sorely lacking, I am afraid) - were onsite fairly quickly given the traffic conditions on Ekamai road, which is notoriously busy at night. And they included some of the bravest people I have ever seen.
About the author
- Writer: Julian Bulman
