BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — A fire tore through a Thai nightclub early Friday killing at least 13 people and injuring 40, a rescue services official said.
The blaze broke out around 1 a.m. at the Mountain B nightspot in Chonburi province’s Sattahip district, about 150 kilometers south of Bangkok, an official from the Sawang Rojanathammasathan Rescue Foundation told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Video footage posted by the rescue service showed desperate revellers fleeing the club screaming, their clothes ablaze, as a huge fire rages in the background.
The service said the blaze was accelerated by flammable acoustic foam on the walls of the club, and it took firefighters more than three hours to bring it under control.
The dead — four women and nine men — were found mostly crowded by the entrance and in the bathroom, their bodies severely burned, the service said.
All the victims are believed to be Thai.
“There is not death related to foreigners,” police lieutenant colonel Boonsong Yingyong of the Phlu Ta Luang police station, which oversees the area where the blaze occurred, told AFP by phone.