Tourists in Bangkok recount their shock at Monday's bomb attack, while businesses fear the worst as violence returns to the streets of the Thai capital. Bangkok (dpa) - Francesco Fabbiani was relaxing with his wife and three children on the fifth floor swimming pool of the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in the heart of Bangkok when he heard a loud bang. "I felt the entire building shake and the water was splashing back and forth," the 44 year-old Italian from South Tirol said.
"It was actually my son who noticed it at first: small bits of debris and body parts landing in the pool area." The Erawan hotel is on a busy intersection, home also to a popular Hindu shrine of the same name that was targeted in what Thailand's prime minister called the worst bomb attack in the country's history. Hotel security immediately urged Fabbiani's family inside but not before Francesco went to the balcony to see the scene below. The Rajprasong intersection, normally crammed with traffic, was being abandoned as passers-by rushed to safety. Bodies lay strewn around the shrine, even as parts of the road were on fire.
"There was smoke and screaming. The paramedics had not yet arrived at the scene. It was bad," he said. At least 20 people were killed and more than a hundred injured in the explosion on Monday evening. Fabbiani counts himself lucky. If his family had chosen to take a walk outside the hotel instead of going to the pool, they could have been caught in the blast. Taiwanese visitor Wendy Liu had just arrived in a hotel less than 50 metres away from the bomb site when the explosion hit. "I was scheduled to leave on Thursday but moved it up to tonight," Liu said. "I don't feel safe here anymore." The Thai authorities believe the bombing may have been intended to destabilize the country by striking at its vital tourist industry.
The exodus of tourists like Liu after violence on the streets is nothing new for businesses in the Rajprasong area. In 2010, a group of protesters allied to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra occupied the same intersection for more than a month before being cleared out by the army in a deadly crackdown that led to 90 deaths. In 2013 and 2014, counter-Thaksin marches repeatedly shutdown the same junction. Only after a military coup in May last year did business resume with a sense of normality, until Monday's explosion. "We fear the worst again," said Pau Bhanuband, the senior vice president of Renaissance Hotel located 50 metres from the blast. "Tourists don't come to the area and locals get too scared to come to our restaurants."
Pongsasakorn Kornkum, the manager of BKK Bagels Bakery a similar distance from the blast site, echoed those sentiments. "Every time political problems happen we lose at least 30 per cent of our sales," he said. Francesco and his wife however vowed that such acts would not damage their affection for Thailand. "When your time is up, your time is up," said Verena von Aufschneider, Francesco's wife. "We are here with our kids and we will go sightseeing today. I don't want them to be scared," she said. "We know Thailand. We know this is not the norm. We would still come back," Francesco said.
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