In the summer of 1986 I took a ferry across the English Channel from England to Belgium. In those days before the Chunnel the ship was among the huge vessels that carried hundreds of passengers and their automobiles. My ride was uneventful, but less than a year later the Herald of Free Enterprise famously capsized, killing nearly 200 people. An investigation into the cause of the the disaster revealed details that indicated to me that it could have just as easily occurred on the day of my crossing.
It was the first time I can recall having been so clearly shown that life’s fragile hold can swiftly be broken by chance. It’s chilling when you see a tragedy in the news that could have very easily included you had the timing been different. I had that experience again today.
As Thailand rang in the New Year two days ago a fire cut short the lives of dozens at Club Santika. If you’ve followed the international news over the past 24 hours you’ve probably heard about the death toll at this popular nightclub. The news caught my attention because I had a memorable night there back in 2007. As they do on most nights, Santika had live music and the band was actually pretty good. Outside on the front deck there was a photo beauty contest for Thai women from around the country.
The band was a crew of local kids playing mostly covers of western music. It might surprise you to know that sets like that aren’t for the benefit of tourists. Santika’s biggest crowd is not Americans like me or even Europeans, but young Thais. As my colleagues enjoyed drinks and people watching we hung in there with the band right up until they tried to cover Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. They might have been decent musicians, but the lead singer couldn’t touch Freddy Mercury in a million years. The Thais ate it up. We couldn’t help but wince and laugh a little.
I’m sure that nobody was laughing when it caught fire on New Year’s Eve.
I remember the inside of the club and it’s floorplan reasonably well and it is hard for me to imagine how a fire could spread fast enough that it could kill people before they managed to escape. It makes me wonder what it was that caught on fire. The stage structure? Curtains? Decorations of some kind? Regardless of how it happened it did, and I suppose the moral of the story is that fire’s ability to destroy and kill should never be underestimated.
Night club disasters – particularly those in developing countries – often have that remote, far off feeling of “it couldn’t happen to me” but obviously this one could have easily happened to me. It doesn’t feel abstract at all. I can clearly visualize the young Thai men and women and a few tourists here and there to having a good time like any other night. I can’t visualize the horror and panic that must have happened when the blaze started.
I’m all for enjoying the nightlife abroad when traveling, and if you like music or dancing or just having a good time with friends I reccomend it. After this news however, I also reccomend that whenever visiting such a place that you think about what you would do to get out in the case of a fire. I know that I didn’t the night that I was there, and I might have paid the price with my life.
