Tag: Thailand

  • Animals killed as fire rips through Bangkok pet market

    Animals killed as fire rips through Bangkok pet market

    A fire ripped through pet shops next to Bangkok’s famed Chatuchak market early Tuesday, killing caged dogs, cats, birds and snakes, and damaging more than 100 stalls, police said.

    The fire is believed to have started in the ornamental fish zone in Srisomrat Market, adjacent to the bigger Chatuchak, around 4:00 am (2100 GMT), according to Tivakorn Prongseng, a police inspector investigating the case.

    The blaze spread to more than 100 stalls across about 1,300 square metres (14,000 square feet), he told AFP.

    There were no reports of human casualties, but multiple caged animals were found dead at the market, which belongs to the State Railway of Thailand, he said.

    The fire was extinguished by 6:00 am, and the cause is being investigated, Tivakorn added.

    Local media reported that hundreds of pets had died in the fire, but Tivakorn said it was too early to say how many had perished.

    The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has set up a presence at the scene to gather information from affected shop owners.

    Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt visited the site and said people could help affected shop owners by offering to house surviving animals.

    Fires have previously damaged sections of the neighbouring, tightly packed Chatuchak market, which sells everything from antiques and electronics to dishwares and food.

    The market is a top tourist draw, but also a popular shopping destination for locals.

    Conservation groups have previously raised concerns about the sale of live animals in the area, with periodic raids on sellers netting endangered species.

  • Thailand To Offer Medical Coverage For Tourists

    Thailand To Offer Medical Coverage For Tourists

    Thailand has launched a scheme to offer visitors up to $14,000 in medical coverage in the event of an accident, the tourism minister said Thursday, as the kingdom seeks to lure travelers back after the pandemic.

    The government will cover expenses up to 500,000 baht ($14,000) and pay compensation of up to one million baht in case of death under the new scheme.

    Travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic hammered the kingdom’s vital tourism sector and arrivals have not bounced back as quickly as officials hoped.

    Tourism minister Sudawan Wangsuphakijkosol told AFP the new Thailand Traveller Safety scheme began on January 1 and will run until August 31.

    “The campaign aims to assure foreign tourists that Thailand is safe and everyone will be under good care,” she said.

    The kingdom has long been popular with young backpackers from around the world seeking sun, sand and adrenalin.

    But accidents are not uncommon and there have been numerous reports in recent months of young Europeans finding themselves facing big medical bills with inadequate insurance.

    The Thai government stresses that the scheme will not cover accidents caused by “negligence, intent, illegal acts” or risky behaviour.

    Tourists can register for the scheme through the Thailand Traveller Safety website at tts.go.th.

    Some 28 million people visited Thailand in 2023, up from 11 million the year before, but still well down from the 40 million who came in 2019, the last year before the pandemic.

    Officials are hoping to hit 35 million visitors in 2024, with a target of $55 billion in revenue.

  • Husband-wife fight forces plane to make emergency landing in India

    Husband-wife fight forces plane to make emergency landing in India

    A Lufthansa plane that took off from Germany had to make an emergency landing in New Delhi’s Indra Gandhi’s airport after an intense fight broke out between a husband and wife.

    On November 29, right after the take-off from Munich, a couple started fighting in the plane. Seeing the situation getting worse, pilots informed the control room. It directed the plane to land in Pakistan. On not getting permission, the pilots made an emergency landing in New Delhi and handed over the two passengers to airport security there.

    The wife, a native of Thailand, complained that her German husband was threatening her. Passengers as well as the crew also witnessed him shouting and hurling things at his wife while reportedly being drunk.

    According to Indian media, the German embassy has been contacted to handle the matter. The police is talking to airline staff to ascertain the sequence of events and check if an FIR needs to be registered.

    The wife was travelling on a separate ticket and later asked the airline to continue her journey to Bangkok alone but she too was deboarded.

  • Pakistani contestant at ‘The Voice’ moved social media, judges with her voice

    A Pakistani contestant on the popular Hollywood singing show ‘The Voice’ is garnering praise on social media for her powerful singing, which even received applause from the judges on the show!

    https://twitter.com/superkhadijaman/status/1635330298446778368?s=20

    Tasha Jessen, who was born in Faisalabad, Pakistan, sung ‘Rivers’ by Leon Bridges. Three judges on the show, Chance The Rapper, Niall Horan and Blake Sheldon, all turned around and wanted Jessen to become a member of their team.

    At her audition, Jessen revealed that she came from a family of singers but as a Christian born in Pakistan, it was incredibly hard for her to chase her dreams:

    “Growing up, my parents were super musical; my whole family sings,” said Jessen. “But life was hard in Pakistan because Pakistan is an Islamic country, and I was the one Christian kid in school.”

    Jessen explained that she stuck out like a ‘sore thumb’ and because of the ongoing religious persecution against Christians in Pakistan, her family fled to Thailand.

    “We had so much chaos happening around us, and we forgot about music,” she explained.

    Jessen later married Maverek and moved to United States last year, and often collaborated with her husband to sing at a local church in Colorado.

  • Ex-policeman killed children at a nursery in Thailand

    Ex-policeman killed children at a nursery in Thailand

    An ex-policeman identified as Panya Kamrab has killed at least 37 people, most of them children, in a gun and knife attack at a childcare centre in north-east Thailand.

    Trigger warning

    At least 22 children were among the dead in the mass killing. Some victims, aged as young as two, were attacked as they slept.

    Police say that the attacker then killed himself, his wife and his son after the horrific incident. According to Thai police, the attacker mostly stabbed his victims before fleeing the scene.

    “The shooter came in around lunchtime and shot four or five officials at the childcare centre first,” a local official told Reuters.

    “After inspecting the crime scene, we found that the perpetrator tried to break in and he mainly used a knife to commit the crime by killing a number of small children,” said Police Chief.

    “Then he got out and started killing anyone he met along the way with a gun or the knife until he got home. We surrounded the house and then found that he committed suicide in his home.”

    The country’s Prime Minister (PM) Prayut Chan-o-cha described the incident as “a shocking event”.

    The attacker was a police lieutenant colonel before he was dismissed last year for drug use.

  • [VIDEO] Man grabs a giant cobra snake with bare hands

    A volunteer man caught a giant king cobra with bare hands in Krabi, a province in Thailand.

    According to reports, a 40-year-old man named Sutee Naewhaad grabbed a long snake from the neck. He took 20 minutes to capture and put a huge cobra into the bag.

    Locals said that the cobra slipped from the palm plantation and was trying to hide in a septic tank.

    A video was uploaded by a man on his Facebook account on January 25, 2022, which went viral.

    The king cobra snake measured 4.5 meters in length and weighed 10 kilogrammes.

    In the viral video, the man was attempting to catch the cobra but the snake attacked him for the first time by jumping towards him. However, he succeeded in grabbing the snake at the end.

  • VIDEO: Hundreds of monkeys fight on road, bring traffic to halt

    VIDEO: Hundreds of monkeys fight on road, bring traffic to halt

    Two rival monkey gangs clashed on a street in Thailand’s Lopburi in a fight over the food near a traffic junction.

    The video of the incident went viral on social media. Hundreds of monkeys on the street brought the traffic to a halt as people on motorbikes and cars waited to get a clear way out of there while being frightened.

    The man who recorded the fight, Pong Muangthong, said motorists also tried honking their horns to scatter the monkeys but that only made them angrier.

    As a result of this incident, several monkeys were injured. There was blood on the road.

    Read More: Massive spider webs blanket Australian state

    “Monkey battles in Lopburi occur frequently. It’s not strange. It’s about the power struggle, the food fight, the fertilization of the females,” a spokesperson for the Department of National Parks told Matichon.

    According to Daily Mail, Covid-19 might be the reason behind the gang war.

  • VIDEO: Giant lizard causes panic inside Thailand store

    Video captured from a supermarket in Thailand shows an almost six-feet long lizard creating panic inside the store.

    The video, which has gone viral on social media, shows a monitor lizard crawling up a shelf of products in the store. The nearly one-minute-long video was captured by a customer in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand.

    https://twitter.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1379788937921724419?s=20

    People who witnessed the event told the Daily Mail that the incident happened on Tuesday. No one was hurt and the lizard did not take any food, they said.

    The witness who filmed the video later also paused to take a selfie with the creature in the background.

  • Teen receives table after he orders a cheap iPhone online

    Teen receives table after he orders a cheap iPhone online

    A teenager was left gobsmacked after he ordered a cheap iPhone online, which actually turned out to be a massive iPhone-shaped table.

    As per details, the teen from Thailand, had been excited when he stumbled upon what seemed to be a great deal for one of Apple’s beloved iPhones.

    While the shipping costs were a bit higher than he had expected, he couldn’t say not to what he thought was a total bargain. Unfortunately for him, he got a new bit of furniture instead of a brand new iPhone.

    The teen shared his story on social media, and it was clear to see he must have noticed something was wrong as soon as the package arrived.

    Instead of getting a phone-sized parcel, he was greeted with a cardboard box that measured a good few feet in length.

    When he unpackaged the item, he realised that he hadn’t actually ordered one of Apple’s phones, but a large iPhone-shaped table.

    According to the reports, the shopper later admitted he hadn’t checked the details of his order as closely as he probably should have.

    The story quickly gained a lot of attention on social media, as many people used it to warn others that they need to shop with care when buying items online.

    It is not yet known whether the teen attempted to return his phone-shaped table after realising his mistake.