The World : Bangkok Hotel Fire Kills 8

Fire raced through a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, where revelers were celebrating New Year’s, and at least eight people were killed, four of them foreigners, officials and witnesses said. The blaze engulfed the First Hotel in Bangkok at about 4:15 a.m., said Pairoj Chiravanpan, a public relations officer at the fire department. Pairoj had no information on the nationalities of the foreigners, but local reporters said one Singaporean was killed when he fell from a ladder of a helicopter that had tried to rescue him from the roof of the blazing building. About 300 guests rushed out of the hotel in panic, they said.