University Student Killed: A second-year university student was killed in a fire that swept through four rented houses in Bangkok’s Chatuchak district on Monday morning.
Police said the fire had started at 9.20 am on Soi Phaholyothin 24 branch 2, in Jompol sub-district. Firefighters took about an hour to put out the blaze after it damaged four of six rented houses built in a connected row, with the second floor made of wood and the first floor of brick.
The fire broke out in the third house in the row, and spread to three of the houses on both sides, police said.
The charred body of Panida Chok-uayporn, 20, a second-year student at Dhurakij Pundit University, was found on the second floor of the house in which the fire had apparently started. Her body was found in a sitting position on the bed, with her back against the wall. Local resident Sophan Pongpaithoon, 50, said the rented houses had been constructed about 40 years ago. She said that when she heard some of the tenants shouting that there was a fire, she ran with an extinguisher to try to put out the blaze, but it had quickly spread out of control. When she and her husband then heard a woman screaming and knocking on the wall on the second floor of the third house in the row, her husband shouted for the person to get out and jump.
However, the fire then grew more intense and they had to step back, after which they heard no further sound from the victim’s property, Sophan explained. Pol Colonel Komsak Sumungkaset, deputy commander of Metropolitan Division 2, said police later learned that the student had been living with her mother and an aunt. Komsak said the mother and aunt had left early to go to work, with the aunt having lit joss sticks on the Buddha amulet shelf on the second floor of the property before leaving. The aunt had been scheduled to come back at 10am to wake her niece so that she could get ready to go to university, he added.
Nation
