BANGKOK (Reuters) - A blaze at a Bangkok nightclub killed at least 53 people celebrating the New Year and injured more than 100 others, police and rescue workers said.
"We were all dancing and suddenly there was a big flame that came out of the front of the stage and everybody was running away," female partygoer Oh Benjamas told Reuters on Thursday on the street outside the smouldering wreckage of the nightspot.
Dozens of bodies lay on the pavement waiting to be taken away in pick-up trucks as fire crews moved in to try and douse the smouldering embers of the Santika club on Ekkamai, a street popular with Thai and foreign revellers.
Many of the bodies were charred beyond recognition and the blaze had completely gutted the building.
Thanat Wongsanga, deputy chief of the nearby Thong Lor police station, said the cause of the fire had not yet been determined although local media said an electrical fault was probably to blame.
Various domestic media outlets put the death toll at between 50 and 55.
(Reporting by Noppawan Bunluesilp and Darren Schuettler; Writing by Ed Cropley; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
