Festive Season
Its been about a month since I last blogged, but much happened from before Christmas till now. A memorable holiday trip with grandma and family to Ho Chi Minh city and Dalat ended the year on a high note. On the 2nd day of 2009, I was not working, and was opening the door to my house after running some errands when I received a call from office. I was to fly to Bangkok in 3 hours time, to follow up on the situation of the Santika Club fire, which left 1 Singaporean dead and 2 missing. We seldom get called up on last minute oversea assignments, and I was lucky to be at home and ready to go.
There was no lunch for the 4 days that I was there, except for one day when a mobile stall set up shop outside the Police General Hospital. I presumed the owner saw business potential from the media personnel gathered outside the mortuary. After day 1, I got used to standing outisde the area where they held bodies before families claim them. The smell is not as bad as I expected, and our job was made much easier with the accomodating Thai people and police. We could photograph almost anyone and anything, even inside a police station and getting a police colonel to bring out belongings of deceased for us to photograph. This amount of access is never possible in tightly-controlled Singapore. We could always check with the morturay staff for information and photograph in their office. Not to mention, photographing bodies from the Santika fire being laid inside coffins. Everything was just up-close and in-your-face. The tele-zoom was used only when I need to get a clean, tight shot, not to sneak a shot.
The all-too-familiar press censorship occurred once the Singaporean families and MFA officials came to claim the 2 missing victims who were confirmed dead. We were no allowed to talk to the families and blocked from taking photographs of them. We were made to feel like paparazzi, when the stories we were after is truly main-stream. I believed Singaporeans would want to know who perished in the fire, instead of just knowing the fact that 2 Singaporeans died. We are not a nation of billions, and any Singaporeans casualties in such mishap is going to be the talk of town. I came with the mission of finding out how many Singaporeans and who died, and bring this piece of news to the masses. It is understandable that families griefed over the death of their loved ones and be given space to do so (that is why we do not cross the line even if we could), but it is frustrating to be misunderstood and obstructed by our own officials who don't have a clue of our roles, as well as theirs.
Thai press staking out at the Morgue.
Free-for-all access inside Thonglor police station when a family learned the one of the charred bodies is identified as their daughter.
Grouses aside, its an exciting trip given the daily guessing game and stake-out, as well as the chinatown shopping mall fire myself and Mugi (from ST) went to photograph on our own. We went to cover it thinking that there might be Singaporeans in it. Fortunately there wasn't and it was an eye opener to see how the locals manage the scene. It was chaotic, with hundreds of fire fighters, and scores of water jets directed at all parts of the building. I got my shoes soaked as the whole street was flooded, and we didn't stay long due to the unbearable smoke that caused your eyes to tear.
Fire at Sua Pa Plaza, Bangkok Chinatown.
Thao came and join me on the 2nd day for 2 days of shopping while I worked. We stayed in a boutique hotel along Sukhumvit Soi 18, so there was no problem finding food after the day's work end at about 11pm. An eventful trip involving work and play, but I couldn't spend Thao's birthday with her.
There was no lunch for the 4 days that I was there, except for one day when a mobile stall set up shop outside the Police General Hospital. I presumed the owner saw business potential from the media personnel gathered outside the mortuary. After day 1, I got used to standing outisde the area where they held bodies before families claim them. The smell is not as bad as I expected, and our job was made much easier with the accomodating Thai people and police. We could photograph almost anyone and anything, even inside a police station and getting a police colonel to bring out belongings of deceased for us to photograph. This amount of access is never possible in tightly-controlled Singapore. We could always check with the morturay staff for information and photograph in their office. Not to mention, photographing bodies from the Santika fire being laid inside coffins. Everything was just up-close and in-your-face. The tele-zoom was used only when I need to get a clean, tight shot, not to sneak a shot.
The all-too-familiar press censorship occurred once the Singaporean families and MFA officials came to claim the 2 missing victims who were confirmed dead. We were no allowed to talk to the families and blocked from taking photographs of them. We were made to feel like paparazzi, when the stories we were after is truly main-stream. I believed Singaporeans would want to know who perished in the fire, instead of just knowing the fact that 2 Singaporeans died. We are not a nation of billions, and any Singaporeans casualties in such mishap is going to be the talk of town. I came with the mission of finding out how many Singaporeans and who died, and bring this piece of news to the masses. It is understandable that families griefed over the death of their loved ones and be given space to do so (that is why we do not cross the line even if we could), but it is frustrating to be misunderstood and obstructed by our own officials who don't have a clue of our roles, as well as theirs.
Thai press staking out at the Morgue.
Free-for-all access inside Thonglor police station when a family learned the one of the charred bodies is identified as their daughter.
Grouses aside, its an exciting trip given the daily guessing game and stake-out, as well as the chinatown shopping mall fire myself and Mugi (from ST) went to photograph on our own. We went to cover it thinking that there might be Singaporeans in it. Fortunately there wasn't and it was an eye opener to see how the locals manage the scene. It was chaotic, with hundreds of fire fighters, and scores of water jets directed at all parts of the building. I got my shoes soaked as the whole street was flooded, and we didn't stay long due to the unbearable smoke that caused your eyes to tear.
Fire at Sua Pa Plaza, Bangkok Chinatown.
Thao came and join me on the 2nd day for 2 days of shopping while I worked. We stayed in a boutique hotel along Sukhumvit Soi 18, so there was no problem finding food after the day's work end at about 11pm. An eventful trip involving work and play, but I couldn't spend Thao's birthday with her.
posted by Kwang Peng at 5:58 PM
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