Explosion rocks central Bangkok, deaths & injuries reported

Major Gen Weerachon Sukhonthapatipak, the deputy government spokesman said Prime Minister Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha had already been informed of the bomb explosion and had instructed the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team to rush to the area.

Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said the attack, which no one immediately claimed responsibility for, was aimed at undermining the economy.

Police chief Somyot said the bomb at the shrine was improvised, with gunpowder stuffed inside a pipe, and detonated in a similar way to how a TNT device is set off.

Thailand’s defense minister says investigators are getting closer to determining who set off the bomb that killed at least 18 people in central Bangkok, though he did not give further details.

Those were politically motivated according to the Bangkok Post newspaper, but it is still not known who was behind the attack.

Dramatic footage of the moment they were hit has emerged and shows a crowd of people walking along the pedestrian bridge to make their way into the surrounding shopping centres near the shrine before a loud bang is heard and the area is engulfed in flames.

Thai Officials have yet to blame any group for the bombing at the Erawan shrine on Monday evening, which the government called a bid to destroy the economy.

Public Health Permanent Secretary Narong Sahametapat said the youngest patient injured in the blast is “a five-year-old Chinese national who suffered head injuries”. Their daughter’s arm was also slightly injured. It was also reported that street vendors along the road were believed to be among the victims of the explosion. “It exploded once and we were very frightened and started moving back”, she told RTHK.

Several bodies with visible burns were seen at the intersection, which was littered with human remains and debris from the blast.

“We didn’t think anything like this could happen in Bangkok”, said Holger Siegle, a German who said he and his newly Wed wife had chosen Thailand because it seemed safe.

“My husband was hurt. All I know was there was a lot of blood spilling out”.

It collected the figures from 15 hospitals in Bangkok.

Charred and shattered motorcycles littered the scene, along with hunks of concrete from the shrine, with pools of blood on the pavement and bodies covered by white sheets.

“But then I was like, yeah, this has to be a bomb because of the utter scale of devastation”, he said early Tuesday.

Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the initial comments by Thai police and military cast immediate focus on the kingdom s rival political factions.

The Erawan is an enormously popular shrine to the Hindu god Brahma but is visited by thousands of Buddhist devotees every day.

Bombings in Thailand are often connected to political unrest or the Muslim insurgency in the southern regions of the country, and have rarely involved foreigners.

‘The force was really intense.

Civilians are overwhelmingly the target, but the conflict which sees local rebels calling for greater autonomy from the Thai state has stayed highly localised. It is located on a traffic-choked intersection in Bangkok’s busy commercial hub and surrounded by three major shopping malls.

Occasional small blasts have been blamed on one side or the other.