Three foreign nationals died and seven others, including two Thais, were injured in a fire at a hotel in the Phra Nakhon district of Bangkok on Sunday night.
Police say that the identities and nationalities of the deceased are not yet known, while the injured include two German, one Japanese, one Chinese, two Thai nationals and a woman whose nationality is currently unknown because she was unconscious at the time she was rescued from the hotel.
Last night, Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt ordered the hotel temporarily closed and all the guests were moved to another hotel, arranged by the owner of the hotel in which the fire occurred.
Suriyachai Rawiwan, director of the Public Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Office of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, said that the fire originated in a room on the fifth floor, adding that there were 39 guests and hotel staff in the building at the time of the fire.
The governor, who visited the scene last night, said that firefighters responded quickly and managed to get the blaze under control quickly. He said that thick smoke had hampered their efforts to get into the hotel though.
Pol Lt-Col Sayam Boonsom, commissioner of Metropolitan Police, said that they have invited several hotel guests to Chana Songkhram police station to give their accounts of the incident, while forensics officers attempt to determine the cause of the inferno.
According to police reports, one of the three deceased, a woman, died in the hotel, while two male decedents died later in hospital.
