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THAILAND: Adskillige mennesker mistede livet, da der fredag udbrød brand i en flytningelejr i det nordlige Thailand. Det oplyser det thailandske indenrigsministerium ifølge AFP.
»Branden ødelagde 100 interimistiske huse. 30 mennesker er døde og flere er sårede,« fortæller en talsmand for ministeriet.
Lejren huser flygtninge fra Thailands naboland, Myanmar.
MAE HONG SON: About 30 refugees were killed in a fire at a camp in Khun Yuam district yesterday, police said.
The fire broke out at the Mae Surin refugee camp about 6pm and raged through a cluster of makeshift houses at the camp, one of three in Mae Hong Son.
The fire destroyed about 200 out of 281 houses, mostly made of bamboo wood and roofed with dried grass, said Pol Col Nitinart Witthayawuthikul, chief of the Khun Yuam district police station. About 1,800 ethnic Karen refugees from Myanmar lived in this camp, he said.
A senior national intelligence official said most of the dead are women, elderly and children. Some 200 were injured and hospitalised.
Mae Hong Son assistant governor Boonserm Jitjanesuwan said all of the refugees had been evacuated to a temporary shelter.
Initial investigations determined that a refugee was cooking in a kitchen when the wooden wall caught fire from a stove and quickly spread to other houses.
"I regret this incident and too many people died," Interior Minister Charupong Ruangsuwan said. "The casualties should not be so high. I will investigate the cause of the fire."
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Camp blaze death toll rises to 62
Published: 23 Mar 2013 at 11.20Online news:
A total of 62 refugees were confirmed dead in a fire at a camp in Khun Yuam district of Mae Hong Son province on Friday, reports said.
It was reported yesterday that 30 refugees were killed when the fire broke out at the Mae Surin refugee camp about 6pm.
Mae Hong Son governor Narumon Palawat said on Saturday morning that officials providing assistance for the refugees there reported that 62 bodies had been found.
They were searching the burned camp’s area as more victims are expected, she added.
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Refugee death toll rises to 35
2,300 homeless, more than 100 injured as horror unfolds
MAE HONG SON - The death toll from the inferno on Friday at a refugee camp in Mae Hong Son's Khun Yuam district has climbed to 35 with one missing as authorities investigate the cause of the fire.
Pol Lt Col Decha Phaohom, an investigator with Khun Yuam district police station, said witnesses saw embers being blown by the wind land on the roof of a refugee house which caught fire andquickly spread to other houses.
Investigators believe the blaze may have been caused by a forest fire, not sparked by people cooking as previously reported, Pol Lt Col Decha said.
Dr Paisarn Thanyawinitchakul, the chief of the Mae Hong Son Public Health Office, said 35 people have been confirmed dead, 19 seriously injured, and about 100 suffered minor injuries.
He said the dead victims have been sent to Maharaj Hospital in Chiang Mai for autopsies and assistance may also be sought from the Police General Hospital's Institute of Forensic Medicine.
Mae Hong Song Governor Naruemon Palawat said Saturday the fire broke out in Zone 1 and Zone 4 of the camp at about 4pm before it was brought under control at about 6pm on Friday.
All of the refugees had been evacuated to a temporary shelter near the camp.
They were not taken to shelters in downtown areas of Khun Yuam district because the law forbids the refugees from moving far away from the camps.
Ms Naruemon said the blaze destroyed about 100 huts, mostly made of bamboo and with dried grass roofs, living quarters for defence volunteers, a school, a medical clinic and two warehouses storing food.
She said most of the victims died at a hospital in the refugee camp because they could not escape the blaze.
The camp, about 90km west of Mae Hong Son, has accommodated about 3,000 Karen refugees for more than 20 years, Ms Naruemon said.
It is one of nine refugee camps on the Thai-Myanmar border set up more than two decades ago to offer asylum for ethnic Karen fleeing the fighting between the Myanmar army and rebel troops.
Hospitals in Mae Hong Son had dispatched teams of medical personnel to tend to the injured.
Temporary shelters for the homeless are being provided by the International Rescue Committee, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Jesuit Refugee Service and the International Organisation for Migration.
It is estimated that more than 2,300 refugees are left homeless.
Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department director-general Chatchai Promlert said he had instructed the department's regional centres to assist as well.
Donation centres have also been set up in all districts of Mae Hong Song to help the homeless refugees.
Chuan Sirinantporn, director-general of the Provincial Administration Department, said the nine refugee camps supervised by the department along the ThaiMyanmar border are usually safe places and that the blaze was probably an accident.
The nine camps include one in Ratchaburi, one in Kanchanaburi, three in Tak and four in Mae Hong Son.
National police chief Adul Saengsingkaew Saturday ordered the Provincial Police Region 5 to step up efforts to determine the cause of the fire at the camp and to verify the identify of the dead victims.
The United Nations refugee agency said it was rushing to provide plastic sheets, bed mats and other resources to make emergency shelters.
Forensic teams and security troops rushed to the camp early Saturday, even while the remains were still smouldering.
"We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident and doing what we can to provide instant relief," said the UNHCR's Thailand representative, Mireille Girard.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, informed of the fire while on an official visit to New Zealand, ordered officials to provide all needed assistance to the victims.
She asked the Interior Ministry, the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department and the armed forces to set up an emergency centre to ensure sufficient food, drinking water, medicine and clothing for the affected refugees.
Meanwhile, a fire truck tumbled down a mountain while on its way to help douse the flames at the camp. The accident happened in Pai district, leaving two fire fighters dead and eight injured.
They were sent to Maharaj Hospital in Chiang Mai and Pai district hospital.
MAE HONG SON - The Khun Yuam district police chief was hit with a lightning transfer order Monday for alleged negligence in handling Friday's deadly inferno at the Mae Surin refugee camp which resulted in almost 40 deaths.
In the order signed by Mae Hong Son police chief Sompong Chingduang, effective Monday, Pol Col Nitinart Wittayawuthikul has been moved to Mae Hong Son provincial police office for 30 days, pending an investigation.
Pol Maj Gen Sompong said Pol Col Nitinart had failed to perform his duty when the blaze broke out at the refugee camp on Friday afternoon. He would also be excluded from the fire investigation team.
Pol Col Nitinart, however, insisted he had rushed to the scene immediately after learning of the incident.
"I was there [at Mae Surin camp]. I was among the first officers who arrived at the camp to conduct the search and rescue operation," Pol Col Nitinart told the Bangkok Post.
The police officer said he was not informed in advance of his transfer and there was no clear explanation about why he had been moved out of the area.
He said he had made some progress in questioning witnesses about the cause of the blaze.
Pol Maj Gen Sompong said a police investigation committee had been set up to investigate the camp fire. The cause could not be concluded at this stage.
Investigators were still questioning witnesses and affected refugees.
He said police would interview as many refugees as they could.
"We will try to finish the investigation as soon as possible," he said.
He refused to confirm an earlier account by some witnesses that the fire started at a house in Zone 1 of the refugee camp
While Deputy Interior Minister Pracha Prasopdee insisted Monday the camp blaze was an accident, accounts given by refugees at the camp suggested it might have been man-made.
A police source who questioned Mae Surin camp refugees in the aftermath of the inferno said many witnesses told the officers they saw a helicopter flying above the camp minutes before the fire broke out. They also said they saw a burning object dropped from the helicopter on the roof of a house in Zone 1.
A source from the police forensics team Monday said traces of phosphorus had been found in the grounds of the house where the blaze was believed to have started.
Soil samples from the house would be sent to a Bangkok laboratory for further examination, the source said.
Sunai Phasuk, the Human Rights Watch representative in Thailand, urged the government to quickly and clearly conclude the probe to end all the speculation as the tragedy and the high death toll were being closely watched by human rights organisations and had become a concern among activists.
"The government cannot sit on this issue and let it go with the hope that the public will soon forget about it," he said.
"The government has to come up with an answer."
Meanwhile, the bodies of 36 fire victims at Mae Surin refugee camp were buried Monday in a simple Christian ceremony.
The official death toll is 37. The last victim, a male refugee, succumbed to his injuries at Nakorn Ping Hospital in Chiang Mai on Sunday. His body has yet to be returned to the camp for religious ceremonies.
Sa Mu, 29, who lost his 20-year-old brother and 15-year-old nephew in the blaze, said the fire began in Zone 1 while he was at home in Zone 4.
He ran out to help others in Zone 4 put out the fire.
"In only about 15 minutes, the fire spread quickly to my house. So I had to rush back home," he said, adding that he shouted for his family members to escape before running to a stream next to the camp.
But his brother and nephew could not make it out to the stream.
Joa Pa Hu, 26, the owner of the house where the fire was believed to have started, told police he was not at home when the blaze began.
"I left my two-year-old son sleeping at the house and went out to eat with my mother at another house," he said. "No one was at the house except my son."
He insisted he did not leave a cooking fire burning when he went out.
Toe La Si, 32, said many people heard the sound of a helicopter's rotors and saw sparks and smoke trails falling from the sky.
"It was like someone setting fire to different corners of the camp. It spread quickly from section 1 to 4," she said.
Khun Yuam district chief Charnchai Srisathien Monday said identification of the victims had been finalised. Of the 37 killed, 21 were male and 16 female.
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Blaze cop claims victimisation
Witnesses say fire began in camp, not an accident
The fire that ravaged Mae Surin refugee camp on Friday was not an accident, embattled Khun Yuam district police chief Pol Col Nitinart Wittayawuthikul claimed Tuesday.
The district police chief was transferred, pending an investigation, to an inactive post at Mae Hong Son provincial police office on Monday for alleged negligence in his handling of Friday's disaster in Mae Hong Song's Khun Yuam district. He was also removed from the blaze investigation team.
However, Pol Col Nitinart says he is being punished because he refuses to confirm the deadly fire was an accident.
Trauma sets in: Refugees want freedom
Friday's fire killed 37 Karen and Karenni refugees, injured over 100 and left more than 2,300 homeless. The camp is home to about 3,000 people.
Authorities have so far been unable to determine the cause of the blaze.
Police initially suspected that the fire started in a kitchen. Another theory is that embers from a nearby forest fire blown by the wind could have landed on the thatched roof of a refugee house.
Pol Col Nitinart Tuesday said he had spoken to witnesses before he was removed from the case and said their accounts led him to believe the fire started inside the camp and was not an accident. He stopped short of saying what he believed caused the fire.
"I have extensively questioned the witnesses and I don't think the fire was an accident," Pol Col Nitinart said.
The transfer order was signed by Mae Hong Son police chief Sompong Chingduang, citing Pol Col Nitinart's alleged dereliction of duty when the fire broke out. But Pol Col Nitinart believes the real reason behind the transfer was because he refused to conclude that the fire was an accident.
"Based on my interrogations and fire scene investigations, I could not come to such a conclusion [that the fire was an accident]," Pol Col Nitinart told the Bangkok Post. "Talk to anyone at the camp, ask them what they saw, and you will know how the fire started," he said.
A police investigation source who questioned Mae Surin refugees said several witnesses claimed they saw a helicopter flying above the camp minutes before the fire broke out.
They also reported seeing a burning object dropped from the helicopter on to the roof of a house in Zone 1.
A source from the Office of Aviation for Natural Resource Conservation said none of the office's helicopters had flown above the camp that day. However, he could not confirm if anyone else had flown helicopters over the site.
Meanwhile, Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department director-general Chatchai Promlert said he was working with the Provincial Administration Department to design fire prevention measures at refugee camps.
Regular fire drills will be held at nine camps in four provinces to prevent a recurrence of Friday's deadly inferno.
The department is responsible for nine refugee camps in Mae Hong Son, Tak, Kanchanaburi and Ratchaburi provinces.
The measures include regular fire drills, the installation of firefighting equipment, and teaching residents how to prevent and control fires.
Mr Chatchai said the department was working with other agencies to provide food, water, shelter and health care services to refugees affected by the blaze.
National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission secretary-general Thakorn Tanthasit said his agency had sought cooperation from mobile phone operators to send vehicles to areas near the Mae Surin camp.
Thaicom Plc has sent several vehicles to provide phone and internet services in the area, Mr Thakorn said.
Public Health Minister Pradit Sintawanarong, meanwhile, said he had asked health officials to monitor the refugees as some survivors are suffering from psychological trauma and depression.
The officials would also step up measures to prevent the spread of diseases.
Khun Yuam district chief Charnchai Srisathian said many refugees were in dire need of shoes, underwear, powdered milk, soap and toothpaste. He urged the public to donate those items at Mae Hong Son provincial hall or district offices and Red Cross offices nationwide.
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