A FIRE tore through a Thai nightclub early today, killing at least 13 people and injuring 40, a rescue services official said.

The blaze broke out around 1am at the Mountain B nightspot in Chonburi province’s Sattahip district, about 150km south of Bangkok, an official from the Sawang Rojanathammasathan Rescue Foundation told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Video footage posted by the rescue service showed desperate revellers fleeing the club screaming, their clothes ablaze, as a huge fire rages in the background.

The service said the blaze was accelerated by flammable acoustic foam on the walls of the club, and it took firefighters more than three hours to bring it under control.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha has ordered an investigation into the incident, and offered condolences to the victims’ families. 

The dead – four women and nine men – were found mostly crowded by the entrance and in the bathroom, their bodies severely burned, the service said. 

They were aged between 17 and 49 and all are believed to have been Thai. 

“There is not death related to foreigners,” police lieutenant colonel Boonsong Yingyong of the Phlu Ta Luang police station, which oversees the area where the blaze occurred, told AFP by phone.

Charred wreck 

One of the victims was the singer of the band playing at the club, his mother told local media. 

“I don’t know what to say. The death came all of a sudden,” Premjai Sae-Oung told reporters. 

She said a musician friend who managed to escape had told her the fire broke out in front of the band and spread rapidly. 

Images of the aftermath showed how the fire had turned the inside of the club into a blackened wreck, with the charred metal frames of furniture scattered among ashes. 

Engineers are inspecting the one-storey building amid fears it could collapse. 

Interior Minister Anupong Paochinda told reporters it appeared the Mountain B was operating “without permission” to run as an entertainment venue.

Concerns have long been raised about Thailand’s lax approach to health and safety regulations, particularly in its countless bars and nightclubs.

A massive inferno erupted at a New Year’s Eve party at Bangkok’s swanky Santika club in 2009, killing 67 people and injuring more than 200.

The Santika owner was jailed for three years over the blaze, which began when fireworks were let off as a rock band called Burn played on stage.

More recently, four people were killed in a fire caused by an electrical fault at a club on the holiday island of Phuket, a magnet for foreign tourists, in 2012. – AFP, August 5, 2022.