Part of an 11-storey department store collapsed on Wednesday in the Thai capital, injuring at least seven people including two seriously, police said.
A section of the New World Department Store, in Bangkok’s Bang Lampoo area near a popular backpacker quarter, caved in from the eighth floor where workers had placed rubbish ahead of a planned demolition.
”Two people suffered serious injuries such as broken legs and were hospitalised,” a policeman at Chanasongkram police station said.
Kosin Tedsavong, director of Phra Nakhon district, told local broadcaster iTV that no deaths had been reported but that rescue officials were searching for any additional victims.
”We are checking on the ground floor as there may have been two or three extra people trapped there,” he said.
Rescue teams were seen scouring the rubble of ground-floor shops, where the casualty toll could have been far higher if Wednesday had not been a national holiday.
The top seven floors of the department store had been ordered demolished in 1994 after a lengthy court battle over an illegal height extension, but New World owners appealed the verdict and it stalled in the courts for years.
Shops on the lower floors were allowed to operate normally in the interim and stayed open as demolition work started on the top levels, a city official said.
”They can operate for business on the first, second, third and fourth floors, since the wrongdoing was above the fourth floor,” Bangkok Metropolitan Administration permanent secretary Nathanon Thavisin said on Thai radio.
Eventually the owners began the demolition themselves rather than face what would have been exorbitant costs had the city participated in the operation, she said.
An investigation into the incident has been launched, and the area surrounding the New World was to be cordoned off and declared a danger zone, she added. — Sapa-AFP