Families claim bodies of Bangkok fatal fire

BANGKOK: Grieving relatives of the victims of a huge Bangkok club fire claimed their bodies on Tuesday as the death toll rose to 30, even as others held out hope that missing loved ones were alive. Twenty-seven people were declared dead in the early hours of Monday, with another succumbing to their injuries later that day.
By Tuesday morning, Bangkok's Chatuchak district office put the death toll at 30, with 75 people injured — 24 in critical condition. Relatives of the dead gathered at Police General Hospital on Tuesday to claim the bodies of their loved ones.
At the rear of the hospital, grey coffins with gilded bas-reliefs emerged before the cameras of dozens of journalists. Some coffins were loaded into the back of ambulances to be transported to the home provinces of the deceased. Forensic police have been scouring the wreckage as authorities seek to establish how the fire started and why it was so deadly, looking at a possible electrical fault and also whether emergency exits were blocked. — AFP