The Red Shirts are a grassroots network of the rural and urban poor, particularly from the country’s northeast, that support Yingluck and her ousted prime minister brother Thaksin Shinawatra. Everyone knows that at 7pm at the shrine there are a lot of people gathered around there – both Thai and foreign tourists. Schools have been closed for Tuesday in Bangkok for safety reasons, and the Thai capital is still in shock. Link to video.
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Chan-O-Cha on Tuesday branded Monday’s bombing the “worst ever attack” on Thailand, as he gave the first indications of who authorities believed were responsible.
The shrine is home to a gilded statue to honour the Brahma God, whose four faces represent kindness, mercy, sympathy, and impartiality. Those killed in the explosion include at least three Chinese, two Singaporeans, one Philippine national and two Hong Kong residents, a reflection of the shrine’s popularity among Asian tourists.
Travel advice issued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) cautions people to “monitor news reports, follow the advice of local authorities and take extra care”.
Vehicle bombs are almost unknown in Bangkok, but have been used in southern Thailand, where a Muslim separatist insurgency has been flaring for several years.
Islamic militants have carried out many attacks in other parts of Southeast Asia, including on Indonesia’s holiday island of Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people.
The blast late Monday hit central Bangkok’s commercial Ratchaprasong intersection, close to the popular open-air Erawan Hindu shrine.
Bangkok has seen politically charged violence over the past decade; the deadliest, in 2010, killed more than 90 over two months and was centered on the same intersection where Monday’s bomb went off. But none of those attacks included a bomb blast that seemed intended to produce mass casualties.
Police said the death toll was 22, with 123 people wounded. “So far there have been no reports of any Indians being injured”, Indian Ambassador to Thailand Harsh Vardhan Shringla told PTI.
He said the injured Filipina sustained hearing injuries because of the blast.
Tourism is one of the few bright spots in an economy that continues to underperform more than a year after the military seized power in May 2014.
It accounts for about 10 percent of the economy and the government had been banking on record arrivals this year following a sharp fall in 2014 because of protests and the coup.
Police investigate the scene at the Erawan Shrine the day after an…
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Marko Cunningham, a New Zealand paramedic working with a Bangkok ambulance service, said the scene was “like a meat market”.
