Bangkok's struck by a bomb attack
August 17, 2015 8:03 PM   Subscribe

Last night (Thailand time), its capital city, Bangkok, has been struck by a deadly blast near one of its famous shrines, the Erawan shrine, in the centre of the city. 22 casualties have been reported, with the Thai Defense Minister claiming that the attack was targeted at foreigners, towards hurting the tourism industry. At the same time, the Royal Thai Army chief and deputy defence minister General Udomdej Sitabutr claimed that the attack did not match the hallmarks of the southern separatist insurgents. Bangkok has been the centrestage of political disturbances in recent years, but this has been seen to be the deadliest attack it's suffered in years, posing a challenge to the military-led administration.
posted by cendawanita (19 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
While the southern Muslim-led insurgency is a major problem, I don't think there's any evidence of that (and even then it's less about religion than nationalism). Thailand as it is has been going through political turmoil - the last democratic govt may have been accused of vote-rigging, but the current military junta rule has been facing persistent problems despite taking over in May last year.
posted by cendawanita at 8:19 PM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is terrible.

This is also awful from a financial perspective for the Bangkok retailers (and the thousands of workers they employ in a pretty depressed economy) who operate in this very high-rent district. The Siam/Erawan area is FULL of commuters, shoppers and tourists day and night, and at the time of the bombing would have been absolutely packed. Think Times Square or Oxford Street but even more hectic and, probably, much less able to cope with a terror attack like this; I have no idea how ambulances would have made it through the traffic.
posted by mdonley at 8:19 PM on August 17, 2015


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posted by grumpybear69 at 8:32 PM on August 17, 2015


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posted by oceanjesse at 8:47 PM on August 17, 2015


Oh man, we stayed about two blocks from there a couple of years ago. It's near a huge mall; the street is packed with people and that shrine is always full of worshippers. Fucking bastards were trying to kill as many innocents as possible.

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posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:58 PM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm always astonished when the separatists in Southern Thailand are referred to as a 'low level insurgency' - which, in the media I get, is pretty much every reference. What's a low level insurgency anyway? I mean, there are bombs and grenades being chucked about fairly regularly.

It seems an odd target for Thai political action, to me.... but of course I know bugger all, so I suppose we will see.

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posted by pompomtom at 9:15 PM on August 17, 2015


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posted by Xavier Xavier at 9:33 PM on August 17, 2015


My best friend was very nearby there an hour before it happened, so you can understand that I'm worried.

It's an open question what's going to happen to Thailand in the next few years. I was there last summer, a couple of months after the coup launched, and it was all very 'situation normal' with only a couple of minor exceptions. Even in the rural countryside, where there's a lot more support for the deposed PM and her brother, things were pretty chill. China, on the same trip, was far more openly militaristic. But the king is an old man and his son is not as beloved. What's going to happen when there is no longer the check that the king imposes on society?

The Thai government has threatened to fall or fallen to coup four times in 30 years and a number prior to that. The southern insurgency is quite serious but most tourists just avoid the area. Bombs in Bangkok do threaten the tourist trade so it seems likely that the already...unpleasant current regime is going to crack down hard on whoever they decide is responsible. There is no good news here.
posted by librarylis at 9:44 PM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


The BBC and the US evening news all used the phrase "an attack on tourists" and mentioned "Chinese tourists" which I thought was strange. Erawan is always described as an important Thai shrine and yes, tourists gather to watch the dance and take photos but five minutes is sufficient; it's not like a temple visit. The vast majority of the people stopping there are Thais who come to pray.

This intersection was one of the main focal points for the Bangkok Shutdown in 2014. The junta just postponed new elections again. After years of poor health, I wonder if the king is finally on his way out. The highly-unpopular crown prince--a Taksin supporter!-- just made his first ever PR appearence at an event on Sunday. I'm inclined to think this is part of the ongoing power struggle between the army and the police but they will blame the Muslim separatists or the Uighers or those guys that were accused of making bombs near Sukhumvit last year...Georgians?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 10:13 PM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think the emphasis on tourists is partly because the Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan told Reuters, "The perpetrators intended to destroy the economy and tourism because the incident occurred in the heart of the tourist district," and partly because some reports (e.g. the Bangkok Post, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Guardian) have it that many of the injured were Chinese and Taiwanese tourists, some of whom do visit Phra Phrom to worship.

Foreign news sources rarely give the same attention to locals as to their own nationals in overseas disasters, and sometimes foreign news sources value tourists of any sort above locals to win audiences. But I don't think that's the case here. I do wonder whether there are some Thai officials who want to identify China instead of Thailand as the target.
posted by gingerest at 11:41 PM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


I love Thailand.
posted by adept256 at 11:45 PM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Warning, if you're going to go hunting for videos of this(or if one of these links contains it, i really don't want to even look) the main one has either body parts or a body just flying out of the sky and landing on the street right off to the side but right in the front of the camera. It's pretty fucking graphic for just being a cctv thing they ran on the news.

It's not vietnam napalm girl bad, but it's pretty bad.
posted by emptythought at 2:16 AM on August 18, 2015


A friend of mine who works across the street from the Erawan Shrine sent this:

The site of the explosion was the Erawan Shrine which everyone in the family remembers well. It's also right across the street from my office. My train station (Chidlom) is right above the shrine and I am usually walking right in the same frame as the video shown repeatedly on CNN as the bomb was detonated.

i have lunch right next to it a few times a week and just had to cancel lunch tomorrow with some foreign visitors that I had scheduled at the Erawan Tea Room because it's windows overlook the shrine and had apparently been blown apart by the force of the blast.

It was actually a pretty close call. I definitely didn't share everyone else's morbid interest in the torn bodies lying in the street and just wanted to get out of there before a second explosion occurred.

Most of my more plugged in friends believe it's either a pro-Taksin faction angry that the military junta just announced it had stripped Taksin of his police title or the military itself trying to justify its tenuous grip on power. This is just the type of crisis that the military claims it needs to stay in power to protect the Thai people from.
posted by gman at 4:51 AM on August 18, 2015 [3 favorites]


Good background piece on the Red vs Yellow conflict in Thailand.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:32 AM on August 18, 2015


Thanks for giving this tragedy more context for the Thai politics and social situation. The only news I'd seen for this was focused on whether any Australians were hurt, not the suspected causes or possible outcomes.
posted by harriet vane at 6:18 AM on August 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Another bomb, possibly a grenade tossed from a bridge over the Chao Phraya River above the (normally densely crowded) Sathorn Pier where the Skytrain meets the river boats. No injuries reported.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 10:15 AM on August 18, 2015


Happy holiday turns to tragedy for Chinese Malaysian family decimated by Bangkok bomb... 5 out of 7 dead
posted by Mister Bijou at 3:35 AM on August 19, 2015


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posted by jaruwaan at 9:15 AM on August 19, 2015




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