In Cambodia, the toll of a large fire that ravaged a casino hotel on Wednesday evening continues to grow. If Thursday, the emergency services had established a provisional toll at 19 dead and thirty wounded, Friday, Sek Sokhom, the representative of the province of Banteay Mean Chey raised to 26 the number of people who lost their lives during the fire. There are “a hundred wounded”, added the representative.
“It’s a tragedy in this holiday season,” responded Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen from Kampot, the scene of the tragedy, in the south of the country. Among the victims, the emergency services counted 21 Thai citizens. “More than 1,000 customers and around 500 employees” were at the Grand Diamond City, an entertainment complex in Poipet (west), on the border with Thailand, when the fire broke out overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.
“The search operation is now complete”
“The search operation is now complete,” Sek Sokhom announced Thursday evening. “Rescuers went wherever we thought we would find victims,” the official added.
Mobilized at dawn on Friday, hundreds of Cambodian and Thai rescuers sifted through the imposing complex of which only sections of the facades blackened by the flames remain, examining certain areas, inaccessible the day before due to smoke.
Footage taken at the time of the blaze showed people cornered on balconies or window sills to escape meter-high flames.
The Cambodian authorities have not yet mentioned the causes of the fire. A Thai rescue worker said the fire quickly spread through the hotel-casino due to carpeting.
“I had the feeling from the beginning that this place was not well secured. Everything inside was old,” Nueng, a Thai employee at the casino hotel, who is awaiting news of his father, who came to gamble, told Nueng, trapped inside by the flames.