What Do We Know About The Bangkok Blast That Killed 22 Including 4 Malaysians?

On the night of 17 August 2015, at about 8 pm Malaysian time, an improvised explosive device detonated at the busy Ratchaprasong Intersection in Bangkok's city centre, near Erawan Shrine, a Hindu shrine that houses a statue of Phra Phrom, the Thai representation of the Hindu creation god Brahma.

The blast killed 22 people and over 123 people were injured.

Thai Police said the device was a pipe bomb with 3 kilograms of TNT stuffed inside and wrapped with white cloth, the BBC reported via the Bangkok Post. The Royal Thai Police found an electronic circuit, suspected to have been used in the attack, 30 metres from the blast site.

News sites reporting on the explosion say it took off clothes, layers of skin, right through the bones and there were people piled on top of people.

According to Reuters, on 18 August, a man threw a small explosive from a bridge in central Bangkok today. However, no injuries were caused, a day after a bomb at a city shrine killed 22 people, including nine foreigners.

The unidentified man threw the explosive near a busy pier on the city's Chao Phraya river and it landed in a canal, said Colonel Natakit Siriwongtawan, deputy police chief of Klongsan district. "If it did not fall in the water then it certainly would have caused injuries," he said.

New Zealand-born Marko Cunningham, who is the operator of the Bangkok Free Ambulance Services and was the first at the scene of the explosion, told Radio 6PR on Tuesday morning there were torn-apart bodies inside the shrine.

"When I walked in there the whole place had been shredded, along with everybody in it. I've never seen an explosion that powerful before. It was like a meat market."

He had to dig through bodies to reach people who were still alive, adding that one of the most horrific image was a young man holding the hand of his dead girlfriend.

"He was alive and she was dead. And they were right next to each other lying on the floor. He was just like in a daze. He wouldn't let go of her hand, we had to remove his hand from her hand. That was the worst thing."

A police spokesperson has said those killed in the blast included:

10 Thais
4 Malaysians
4 Chinese
2 Hong Kong residents
1 Singaporean
1 Filipino

Source: BBC via AFP

The four Malaysians are all said to be from the same family of seven on vacation in Bangkok. Businessman Visen Lim Gim Seong, 46, a close friend of the family, said they were supposed to return on Tuesday. He said he has known the family for over 10 years ago as they were neighbours.

So far no one has come forward to claim responsibility for the blast.

Thailand's Defence Minister Panithan Wattanayakorn told the BBC there are a few suspects. Meanwhile, the government has said it was clearly designed to hit foreigners and Thailand's vital tourism industry.

While Thai forces are fighting a low-level Muslim insurgency in the predominantly Buddhist country's south, those rebels have rarely launched attacks outside their heartland. Moreover, they have never targeted tourists. The army chief has said the attack does not match the tactics used by the insurgents.

"This does not match with incidents in southern Thailand. The type of bomb used is also not in keeping with the south."

Meanwhile, Thai PM Prayuth Chan-ocha has said that authorities were looking for a "suspect" seen on closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage near the blast site.

"I have ordered the cameras be checked because there is one suspect, but it is not clear who he is," Prayuth told reporters at Bangkok's Government House.

In recent months in Thailand's deep south, there has been a surge in improvised explosive device (IED) attacks.

In July alone there were 27 IED attacks, according to Zach Abuza, a prominent researcher on the conflict. In April, a car bomb ripped through a shopping mall car park in Koh Samui, a popular tourist island. However, while the capital is no stranger to unrest and has seen small bombs before, it has never seen an attack on this scale.

According to the BBC, the Ratchaprasong intersection where the blast occurred has been the location of mass political protests in recent years and has been targeted before. In February, two bombs exploded on the Ratchaprasong Skywalk outside the Siam Paragon shopping mall injuring two people.

Javier, one of SAYS' employee who is currently in Bangkok, was walking quite far away from the blast site, but he could still hear the sound, which at first at first sounded thunder-like. He was there with a friend from Singapore who works at Central World, close to the bomb site.

They saw lots of ambulance and police coming from all streets and head to the blast area.

"After the blast, we started receiving messages in our phones. People nearby the incident sent her gory photos of human blown in half. They said body parts were all over the place.I couldn't even manage to bring myself to see the photos. It was scary."

James Sales, a BBC producer who was at the scene and tried to help some of the victims, said: "We all headed down to the street, and you could smell the cordite. You knew that a bomb had gone off. I managed to get a first aid kit from the office. As we got closer there were lots of bodies, one person had been cut in half.

"I went into the shrine. I saw at least nine people, unfortunately, who looked like they had died. I tried to administer CPR to one particular guy who was in his 40s. His family were with him. He didn't make it. There were lots of people with horrific injuries," he added.

Thanapon Peng, a 25-year-old who works as a marketer, told the Guardian: "I saw glass. I saw some organs of people on the road. I don’t know how many people there were. Staff from the Grand Hyatt hotel told me to go into the hotel. I’m waiting here to see if it is safe to leave."

Leify Porter and John Muzza, an Australian couple who were on a nearby footbridge when the blast ripped through the Erawan Shrine, said she was thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion.

"My boyfriend John and I were crossing the sky bridge near the InterContinental Hotel, and we heard this explosion directly beneath us. We fell to the ground. The blast was so big; there was so much smoke and the fire came up so high. There was fire, shrapnel and so much smoke. After the blast, we ran down the stairs. We saw people crawling around the road with missing limbs. People’s bodies were scattered, their legs were torn off and there was blood everywhere. I’ve never felt anything like it. John described what happened as a pull in the air. The feeling in the ears was so intense. And then ringing."

Richard Sri-kureja, who was walking to a mall next to the shrine when the bomb was detonated, said: "There was total chaos. They blocked off the area, everyone was running in totally different directions. That area is usually very, very crowded as it's in the middle of the city and it's usually very packed. A local hotel is full of injured patients. I saw a family that was bleeding badly."