Disabled woman killed in house fire in Bangkok
A woman suffering from skeletal muscle weakness was killed in a fire that engulfed the four-storey townhouse where she lived in Bangkok’s Bang Rak district early on Thursday.
Firefighters, however, managed to save her mother from the balcony on the fourth floor.
Police said the fire started at the townhouse on Soi Saladaeng 1 off Rama IV Road at 1.50am.
When firefighters arrived at the scene, the blaze had already spread from the first to the third floor. The firefighters took about half an hour to put out the blaze and they went upstairs to rescue the mother of house owner Sitthichai Iamritthikrai from the balcony.
But Sitthichai’s sister, Janjira Iamritthikrai, 46, was killed in her bedroom on the ground floor. Her charred body was found beside her bed.
Sitthichai said the family of nine lived in the house when the fire broke out. All of them managed to escape except his mother, and his sister who could not walk due to her skeletal muscle weakness symptom.
Sitthichai said the fire likely started from the battery of his sister’s second-hand battery-powered wheelchair, which was being charged.