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Stampede Update: The Santika New Year's Fire, and Denny's?

By Kevin Ferguson
February 3, 2009
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As an addendum to last December's history of American stampedes, it seems like 2009 has already seen its share around the world. The most notable of these occurred inside a hotel nightclub in Bangkok as the New Year rolled in. The club—Santika—is one of Bangkok's most popular hot spots. The stampede started from a fire inside the club, which led to a giant mass of people running for the club's only exit and left behind 61 dead. BBC has more:

More than 200 people, including at least four Britons, were injured in the fire at the Santika club.Survivors have accused the venue of ignoring basic safety rules. Customers were reportedly allowed to detonate firecrackers inside the club, which lacked a fire exit and had bars on the windows. The police say there are no grounds yet for charging the owners of the club, but an investigation into the causes of the fire will be completed within two to three weeks.

Apparently now the police are at blame for putting a stop to safety inspections back in 2005. Awful. I was inspired to talk about stampedes again when I got word of the Denny's free breakfast promotion was happening this morning. It seems like giveaways are becoming more and more desirable and that makes the thought of it kind of scary. It's not just me, either: Google "Denny's free breakfast" and "stampede" together and you'll get a plethora of blogs and message boards all predicting the worst. Thankfully, nothing happened. But isn't it indicative of something if we're all waiting this eagerly for a tragedy?

Santika photo by Arkadin55 and used under a Creative Commons License.

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