New Delhi, July 14 -- BANGKOK - Athipat Wijarn had been watching the band perform when the ceiling started burning. In the seconds before the fire claimed the pub, he said he heard an explosion. "There was an explosion, and I got hit at the back of my head," he told reporters the following day. He ran. Most of those who died on the night of July 12 at Rong Beer Na Lat Phrao ran too, but toward the back of the building, where two of four exits could not be opened.

Twenty-seven people were killed and 73 injured, at least 25 of them critically, when fire tore through the Lat Phrao pub in northern Bangkok shortly before midnight Saturday. The bar, in Bangkok's Lat Phrao district near the Chatuchak area, was full when the fire broke out. A li...