A huge fire raged out of control through a densely populated slum area in central Bangkok yesterday, with hundreds of firefighters battling the blaze near the Australian and German embassies and several luxury hotels, officials and witnesses said.
The fire engulfed up to 700 wooden houses in the Tungmahamek slum area, home to about 7,000 people behind Bangkok's Sathorn business district, and threatened to spread beyond the congested region as strong winds fanned the flames.
PHOTO: AFP
A large plume of black smoke was seen from several kilometers away rising hundreds of meters into the air.
"As of now, we have not been able to control the fire," Sathorn district director Prasan Bumrungpunt told Bangkok radio from the chaotic scene of the blaze nearly two hours after it began.
"All of the wooden houses in the slum have burned down," he said, adding that some 600 to 700 shanty-style houses had been in the area.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Over 100 firetrucks had converged on Tungmahamek, and several ambulances were standing by on the slum's periphery, but the vehicles appeared unable to navigate the narrow alleyways, a photographer witnessed.
He saw hundreds of residents clogging the narrow streets, their arms full of valuables, or dragging possessions such as refrigerators or gas cylinders out of the fire's reach.
Several volunteers and residents were also seen throwing buckets of water onto flaming rooftops and escorting people to safety.
Metropolitan police spokesman Colonel Phanurat Meepien said the fire had spread to the grounds of a nearby police station and engulfed at least 50 police apartments.
Despite the scope of the blaze there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.
"It's too early to know if there are any casualties," he said.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS