At least 26 people died in the fire of a hotel-casino in Cambodia, where a vast rescue operation took place on Friday on the site where several hundred people were at the time of the tragedy.
“It’s a tragedy in this holiday season,” responded Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen from Kampot in southern Cambodia.
The death toll, which has been rising steadily since Thursday, stands at 26 dead, including 21 Thai citizens, Sek Sokhom, representative of the province of Banteay Mean Chey, told Agence France-Presse. There are a hundred wounded, he added.
More than 1,000 customers and around 500 employees were at the Grand Diamond City, an entertainment complex in Poipet (west), on the border with Thailand, when the fire broke out overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.
“The search operation is now over,” Sek Sokhom announced in the evening. “Rescuers went everywhere we thought we would find victims,” he added.
Mobilized at dawn on Friday, hundreds of Cambodian and Thai rescuers sifted through the imposing complex of which only sections of the facades blackened by the flames remain, examining certain areas, inaccessible the day before due to smoke.
A press conference by Banteay Governor Mean Chey is scheduled for Saturday morning.
“Not very secure”
Footage taken at the time of the blaze showed people cornered on balconies or window sills to escape meter-high flames.
A Thai rescuer told AFP that the fire quickly spread through the hotel-casino due to the presence of carpet.
“I had the feeling from the beginning that this place was not well secured. Everything inside was old,” Nueng, a Thai employee of the hotel-casino, who is awaiting news of his father, who came to play, told AFP, trapped inside by the flames.
“I called him on the phone and when he didn’t answer I lost hope. Now I just want to have her body,” he said.
On the Thai side, bereaved families went to seek information at a makeshift reception center in a parking lot.
“He was stuck inside,” sighed Keerati Keawwat, who lost her 23-year-old son. “I can’t eat, and I’ve only slept for an hour. I am upset “.
The Cambodian authorities have not yet mentioned the causes of the fire.
Wild West atmosphere
The Grand Diamond City is about 200 meters from the border post, on the busy road that connects Bangkok to Siem Reap, a Cambodian tourist town known for the nearby Angkor temples.
Citizens of Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in Asia, are prohibited by law from gambling in casinos.
But many casinos for foreigners have spread to border towns, such as Poipet, where a mainly Thai clientele flocks. Casinos are officially banned in Thailand.
In these shady places, where certain activities play with the limits of legality, there is a Wild West atmosphere, explained Cambodian activist Virak Ou.
“Money and weapons dominate the debates,” he said, to the detriment of the protection of employees and safety rules.
“It’s out of control. I never allowed my children to work there,” said Thitinun Thongging, a Thai tuk-tuk driver who works at the border.
In recent months, several deadly fires in night establishments, regularly suspected of not respecting basic safety rules, have broken out in Southeast Asia.
In August, a fire at a nightclub near Pattaya, Thailand, killed 26 people. A month later, 32 people were killed in a karaoke bar fire in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.