A bomb was reportedly discovered last night at the Golden Crown Casino in Cambodia’s Popiet City — right across the border — which sent herds of spooked Thai gamblers running back to the land of smiles.
A gambler spotted a suspicious styrofoam box in the bathroom of the casino right across the border from our own Sa Kaeo Province at about 7:30pm, according to Spring News. This, for non-Poipet historians, is the border many famous figures have allegedly used to flee the country, including former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
The man immediately called casino security, which moved the bomb outside the building in a panic and, wait for it … covered it with a car tire before calling authorities, the Thai-language outlet reported.
After confirming that the package was, indeed, a working bomb, Cambodian officials quickly evacuated and cordoned off the area surrounding the casino.
However, with nobody present able to defuse the bomb, authorities decided to “destroy” it, though it wasn’t immediately clear if they detonated it themselves or simply let its timer count down to zero. Pictures posted to a Cambodian expat forum appear to show members of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre tasked with doing the heavy lifting of destroying the device.
The explosions were captured via phone camera by a Thai witness, Preerapat Srisakorn, who posted clips on his Facebook page yesterday.
In the videos, two loud bangs can be heard outside a casino followed by heavy smoke. Though onlookers appeared almost excited to watch the scene unfold at the beginning of the video, the explosions startled everyone watching — propelling them to duck for cover.
Though nobody was injured, the explosion shattered the window of a café near the casino.
So is it safe for Thai gamblers to head back across the border? Might be worth giving it a bit of time for things to shake out, as Cambodian police were apparently tipped that five more bombs were still hidden, reported Khaosod.
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