Thai fire exposes safety loopholes

Thai fire exposes safety loopholes

BANGKOK (Reuter): Thailand's worst hotel fire, which has already claimed at least 90 lives, has triggered a public outcry over a lack of enforcement of safety measures for high-rise and public buildings.

Irate Thais voiced their anger on phone-in radio shows amid reports that locked fire exits at the 400-room Royal Jomtien Resort Hotel contributed to the high death toll.

The fire Friday at the beach resort of Pattaya, about 200 km southeast of Bangkok, is the second major disaster in recent years where blocked emergency exits appear to have trapped dozens of hapless victims.

About 200 teenage workers died in May 1993 after fire broke out inside a locked warehouse at the Kader Industrial toy factory at Nakhon Pathom just north of Bangkok.

In both incidents, the hotel and factory owners ignored safety standards and blocked emergency exits to protect their property from theft.

"Whatever excuses were given by the hotel management (for locking the exits) were unacceptable," a member of the National Safety Committee said yesterday, adding that the Royal Jomtien Resort hotel should also not have been allowed to have indoor fire exits on upper floors located in the middle of the 16-story building.

Some 136 tourists and hotel guests died in northeast Korat province in August 1993 after the Royal Plaza Hotel collapsed like a pack of cards. Officials blamed the collapse on earlier unlicensed modification of the building.

A director of the Royal Jomtien Resort hotel conceded yesterday that the ill-fated building, built in the late 1980s, was not equipped with sprinkler and smoke detecting systems. He said the hotel's fire alarms also failed to go off Friday.

Interior Minister Snoh Thienthong on Saturday blamed the hotel management for storing cooking gas tanks in indoor kitchens.

Police said a gas explosion near the hotel's ground floor cafeteria triggered the fire.