Burn's lead singer arrested for lighting fireworks

Saravuth

Saravuth Ariya, 28, is the sixth person so far charged in connection with the inferno. Burn, on stage as partygoers rang in 2009, were regular performers at Santika.

Speaking after a 30-minute interrogation of the singer yesterday, deputy police chief Pol-General Jongrak Jutanont said that Saravuth denied the charges of negligence causing death, injuries and damage.

Countdown to tragedy

"Eyewitnesses and evidence points to fireworks as the cause of the fire - we've heard how the fireworks hit the club's ceiling and fire broke out 30 seconds after they were lit," Jongrak said. "He [Saravuth] was seen lighting the fireworks during the countdown," he added.

Jongrak denied that Saravuth was being used as a scapegoat. He said that police evidence was in line with the Justice Ministry's findings that, while onstage, the singer lit fireworks designed to reach as high as 10 metres. They hit the club's ceiling, which was six metres high. The club's own firework display would not have reached higher than five metres and so had been ruled out as the cause of fire, he added.

Asked who had provided the fireworks, Saravuth or the pub, Jongrak said that whoever it was, the pub was already facing the charge of negligence causing death and injuries.

Few exits and barred windows seem to be the main reasons for such a high death toll.