Bangkok fire resembles tragic Ozone disco

BLURBAL THRUSTS

Louie Logarta

01/04/2009

Bangkok’s New Year celebrations were dampened by a deadly fire in one of the city’s upscale nightspots, leaving 59 persons dead and about 100 others seriously injured.

The fire broke out at shortly past midnight in the plush Santika nightclub where a jampacked crowd of over 1,000 revelers were celebrating the advent of 2009.

Reports said the blaze was first spotted behind the stage where a band and a disc jockey were performing before the audience. The crowd was slow to react and make for the exit because they thought the fire was part of the special effects of the show; but then a violent stampede ensued when they realized it was for real.

City authorities said the fire was probably caused by the fireworks used during the performance, ironically on the club’s closing night as it was going to undergo renovations. They said many of those who died succumbed to smoke inhalation, while the injuries were caused during the mad rush for a building’s lone fire exit, albeit a tiny one.

Shades of the Ozone disco tragedy!

The Santika incident eerily brings back painful memories of the Ozone Disco Club fire along Timog Avenue, Quezon City in March 1996 which claimed the lives of some 162 persons, many of them college and high school students who were celebrating their graduation. The Ozone fire was described as the “worst fire in Philippine history,” and the world’s worst at the time since the one that hit the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky in 1977.

Quezon City Hall officials said that the Ozone disco, which had an approved occupancy of only 35 persons, was estimated to have been filled with some 350 customers and 40 employees at the time of the fire. They said that the fire started also sometime after midnight in the disc jockey’s booth.

As in the Santika nightclub, the partying guests of the Ozone disco thought the blaze was all part of the show being staged by the performers. By the time they realized that it wasn’t, it was too late as the flames had quickly spread to the front of the establishment causing the mezzanine floor to collapse, thereby partially blocking access to the lone fire escape door.

Ultimately, only two persons — Hermilo Ocampo and Ramon Ng, president and treasurer, respectively, of Westwood Entertainment Corp. which owned the Ozone disco establishment — ended up being punished for their negligence which resulted in the tragedy.

In March 2001, exactly five years after the tragic Ozone fire, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court imposed a fine of P25 million each on Ocampo and Ng and sentenced them to four years imprisonment (which allowed them to apply for probation so they wouldn’t have to spend a single day in jail). The court said the accused failed to provide adequate fire exits and sprinklers inside their establishment. The fire extinguishers of the disco joint were deemed defective and the lone fire exit was so small that it didn’t meet the specifications of the National Building Code of the Philippines.

In November 2001, 12 City Hall officials led by City Engineer and Building Official Alfredo Macapugay were criminally charged before the Sandiganbayan for “reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide and multiple serious injuries.”

They were charged before the special anti-graft court for permitting Westwood Entertainment to get a certificate of annual inspection in 1995 “despite the inadequacy, insufficiency and impropriety of the documents submitted by the owners.”

In 2007, Macapugay was acquitted of all charges when the Sandiganbayan ruled he had no complicity — in the issuance of the necessary operating permits to Ozone disco management, while the 11 other small fish are said to still have pending cases.

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