Fire Kills 59 People at Santika
Hey all,
Woah, sitting here at my computer shocked at the news this morning. Called all my University friends first thing this morning, Sabaerni, Shyless, Mario, etc…all my friends who regularly go to Santika.
Santika isn’t a place I photograph usually. It was, however, the first place I visited when venturing out in Bangkok. My friends from University used to go there in groups of 10 or 15 or so kids and we always had a good time. You buy a bottle of Black Label and all the mixers and ice and stand around tables in circles. Each night there’s the same set of DJ playing Hip Hop, Thai band playing covers, DJ, Thai Band, and finish with DJ again.
I went there about 5-10 times over the past year and a half and always had a good time. I photographed there once for the Global DJ concert (the guys that do that horrible remix of All the Leaves are Brown or whatever that song is called). At that concert I remember the place was over-packed and I felt really unsafe/uncomfy there and left after 15 minutes (made some good friends that night because of our shared distaste for the music and our after-party at 808). I’ve never returned to the place after that.
And this was precisely why. It never seemed safe there. I feel so sorry for those who died and were injured. These kinds of things shouldn’t happen… kids just wanting to usher in the new year. Santika is a place where people enjoy the evening with friends, it’s not a sleezy pick up place. You dance and sing in your various table circles and by about 1 AM everyone is dancing and singing together.
I’d be cautious if I were a clubber in Bangkok from here on out. The clubs are very vulnerable to things like this. Glow only has one door, Bed has a sort of emergency exit, but the tools customers that go there would probably all be pushing over each other to reach the exits, Club Culture has only the main door and a stairwell to boot, and many other clubs are also woefully underequipped for emergencies. All it’d take is one bomb or fire at those places to cause mass casualties and loss of tourism to this already hard-up city. I hope all the clubs will now be forced to undergo renovations to put better measures in place. This shouldn’t happen again, but given the state of things in Thailand I fear this is just the beginning.
Paul
January 1st, 2009 at 5:00 am
I agree with you. The one time I was there I much preferred being outside as the DJs were pretty bad, and it was overcrowded inside. I also noticed that the stairs leading down to the restrooms didn’t have any railings and it would have been really easy to fall off. I thought it was completely unsafe. It’s scary to see how quickly it can all go down. Of course having fireworks inside is never a good idea… It’s a sad reality, unfortunately. I think as a general rule, clubs should contain more exits and respect the occupancy limits.
January 1st, 2009 at 7:01 am
Yeah, total tragic, I was in Bangkok last month and went to Santika but it was emptied and we decided to go to another club instead. I probably had been to Santika 4 times over the last couple of years. I agree that when it was packed, it was very difficult to move around in normal circumstances let alone during an emergency like a fire. I hope no one I had met perished in there.