It was 10 p.m. on Sunday, July 12, at Rong Beer Na Lat Phrao, a bar on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand, when a circuit breaker near the stage began emitting smoke after a power outage and an explosion. Within minutes, the fire climbed to the ceiling and consumed the 50-year-old building.
There was no light. People ran blindly, pushing one another as they searched for an exit that barely existed: one of the emergency doors was blocked by a shelving unit, so narrow that it allowed only one person through at a time. Most of the 28 bodies were found in the bathrooms, trapped by the smoke before the flames reached them.
Motorcycle taxi driver Surin Jaiharn, 45, managed to get five people out alive. “I saw many dead people, and I don’t know what happened to the people I helped”, he said afterward. Among the victims were the keyboardist and the singer of the band performing that night. Police are already examining the electrical wiring and whether any decorations fueled the flames.