Relatives are uneasily waiting for the message after the earthquake
The rescue work for the 30 -storey high skyscraper building in Bangkok as collapsed in Friday’s earthquake is going on tirelessly. The dust dizzy and large machines as demolition excavators have now been admitted to the area to clear away cement blocks so that people in there can be found more easily. Ambulances, fire trucks and other rescue vehicles are crowded on the street in front. Curious civilians stand on a bridge and look at the devastation.
At the same time, worried relatives gather for the estimated more than a hundred people who are still under the masses of what would become an office for Thailand’s state audit firm.
Many of the workers come from Myanmar, Cambodia and the Thai countryside. They have moved to Bangkok to make money and have a better life. Their wages are low, around SEK 120 a day, but it is better than the income they can get at home.
– My cousin and his wife are in there. When I heard what happened, I went straight here, says Chiv Riem.
He and about ten people from Cambodia sit in the shade of a tree on the outskirts of the rescue area and eat noodles in the 35-degree heat. They have spent all night in the area of the rescue work and do not intend to go from there until they have been notified of their relatives.
Sandan, who is a younger sister of the man in the real couple has bent up a part of the sheet metal barrier that protects transparency for the rescue work and looks continuously at what is happening in there. She cannot speak Thai, but refers to Chiev Riem as spokesman for the group. And although the unmatched lump that the high -rise building has been transformed into after the earthquake looks impervious, he still has hope.
– My feeling is that they are still alive. A large part of the building is still unveiled, I hope they are there, says Chiev Riem.
He says that the married couple has a twelve -year -old son who lives with the grandparents in Cambodia and that they have worked as a brick in Thailand for ten years. He himself works on another building and was at lunch when the earthquake occurred.
– Suddenly it started to shake, at first I thought I was sick. Then I realized that it is an earthquake and when I heard that this building had collapsed I rushed here.
Banjong stands a bit away, looks out at the rescue work and wonders if his sister of 18 years has survived. The sister comes from Roi et in northeastern Thailand and did an internship as an electrician on the building. It was the last phase of the education that would give him a license to work as an electrician.
– He left school just two weeks ago and went to Bangkok to do internships.
The sister had lunch and slept on the 19th floor when the earthquake occurred, a friend of him, who was lucky enough to be on the toilet on the ground floor, has told Banjong. Now the 19th floor is gone and is compressed with all other floors in a dusty colossus with stone, cement block and steel wires.
– Otherwise, I don’t know that much. We don’t get any updates. But I have written him on a list of missing.
It is he sister, the 18-year-old’s mother, who has commissioned him to monitor the rescue work.
– She does not want to come here, she is afraid that she cannot handle the situation. I think there is a 50 percent chance that he is alive.
The rescue work continues around the clock. Dogs are in the area to search for people. Drones in the air locate things that cannot be seen with the human eye. In social media, Thais have begun to question why the only building that collapsed was precisely this state building, which has been going on for three years and whose note is estimated to be over two billion Thai Baht, SEK 590 million. They ask if the state does not comply with safety regulations and speculate that corruption is involved.
So far, seven people have been confirmed dead. There will probably be many more, but there is still hope of finding alive. Rescue workers state that they have identified 15 workers who are still breathing under the masses.
