Bangkok’s Grand Park Avenue Hotel will face inspection for illegal building modifications in the wake of a fire last Thursday March 8 that reportedly killed two Russian tourists.
Deputy Bangkok Governor Teerachon Manomaiphibul said that the Public Works Department will make the inspection today, The Bangkok Post reported.
Theerachon said that if the 1992 Building Code Act has been violated, the owner of the hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22 could face up to three months in jail and a THB60,000 fine plus a “daily fine” of up to THB10,000.
Pol Col Rattasak Raksalam said that police have brought in nine people to give statements about the fire including hotel employees, the owner, firefighters, district official, and the Engineering Institute of Thailand. Rattasak said that police had informed the Russian Embassy that tourists Asato Igor Badera and his wife Cobha Liudmila Badera died in the blaze. He said that charge of negligence related to the deaths could be filed.
According to another story in The Nation, Theerachon said that an inadequate sprinkler system in the hotel may have caused the fire to spread so quickly. “There were no sprinklers where the fire broke out, though there are sprinklers in other areas. So, we suspect that the affected area might have been modified from the original plan,” he said.
A lack of sprinkler system contributed to the rapid spread of another recent fire in Bangkok at the Fico Place building on Sukhumvit Soi 21.
A poll by Suan Dusit Rajabhat University taken March 9-10 found that 54% of people in Bangkok lacked confidence in the fire prevention system in the capital as so many fires have happened lately. 10% said they outright had no confidence in the city’s fire prevention, 33% said they were “quite confident”, and only 3% had “complete confidence”.
