“About” ten people died on the night from Wednesday to Thursday in a fire at a casino hotel in Poipet (west), a Cambodian city on the border with Thailand, according to Cambodian police.
The fire, which broke out around 11:30 p.m. at the Grand Diamond City Hotel and Casino, left “about ten dead and thirty injured,” according to a preliminary police report. Images posted on social media showed the imposing complex engulfed in flames.
The injured have been sent to hospitals in the neighboring Thai province of Sa Kaeo, a source told the Thai Foreign Ministry.
“The authorities tried to control the fire, in particular with the help of fire trucks from Thailand,” according to this source.
Several deadly fires in recent months
Some 400 people work in Grand Diamond City, Cambodian police said.
Foreign citizens were inside the building when the fire broke out, according to local media. Many casinos have spread to Poipet where Thai customers flock to gamble legally as casinos are banned in Thailand.
In recent months, several deadly fires have broken out in Southeast Asia in nightclubs, commonly suspected of not respecting basic safety standards.
In August, a fire at a nightclub near Pattaya, Thailand, killed 26 people, mostly local youth partying. A month later, 32 people were killed in a fire at a karaoke bar on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Source: BFM TV
