NAKHON PHANOM - Jakkrit Sirarak was saving money from his construction job in Bangkok so that he could propose to his girlfriend and co-worker and get married in April.
Instead of celebrating a happy homecoming, his father, Sakhon, received the body of his son on Thursday after DNA verification confirmed his identity as one of the vcictims of the State Audit Office collapse.
Jakkrit, 18, his girlfriend identified only as Fon, 16, and another man, Boonrod Othathawong, 34, were from Ban Khamsawang in Muang district and had been working for more than a year at the construction site in Chatuchak district of the capital. Only Fon survived when the building crumpled to the ground during the earthquake on March 28.
His father said Jakkrit was looking forward to returning home with Fon to the northeastern province to celebrate the Songkran festival. He was planning to ask Fon’s parents for permission to marry their daughter. Instead of preparing for a wedding, the father ended up travelling to the building site and staying there for about a month.
“I had hoped for a miracle. But when I saw the mountain of debris, I realised that it would be almost impossible,” Mr Sakhon said.
Jakkrit was one of 87 people who have been confirmed dead out of the 109 who were working in the building when Bangkok was shaken by the earthquake in central Myanmar on March 28. Nine were injured and 13 people are still missing.
On that day, Jakkrit, Fon and their colleagues were working on the fifth floor. Jakkrit went up to a toilet on the 10th floor, while Fon went down to the ground floor, she told Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt.
For Fon, as the search and rescue operation went on, she also realised that the chances of seeing her boyfriend alive were dimming.
On April 18 she lit incense in front of the rubble to pay respects to the guardian spirit of the plot where the building had stood.
“Please find him and take him out. Whatever form he is in, I can accept that,” she said.
