Bangkok explodes

After several tense weeks of protesting by the Red Shirts in Bangkok the situation exploded into violence on Saturday 10 April 2010.

Twitter is providing a steady stream of updates. The following are mostly people working in the media based in Bangkok. Please check the tweets from the following list or see my Asia news list on Twitter.

• tulsathit
• photo_journ
• RichardBarrow
• prachatai_en
• bangkokpundit
• newley
• TAN_Network
• karmanomad
• Journotopia
  

According to tweets from tulsathit, Hiroyuki Miramoto, a Japanese reporter for Reuters, has been killed. The exact number of deaths is uncertain at this point but it seems several Red Shirt protesters have also been killed by gunshot wounds. More than 100 people have been injured. This includes both Red Shirts and soldiers. Also a report from Prachatai says two foreign tourists were injured and "One was shot at the chest after having shouted 'Fuck You!' to the soldiers."

Updates on blogs from Bangkok Pundit and New Mandala. Nirmal Ghosh, Bangkok correspondent for the Straits Times, also provides excellent reportage on his blog. The Big Picture on Boston.com also has an amazing collection of photos, but these are from before the major outbreak of violence on 10 April.

I will update this post with more more links as further reports come through.

Update: The latest report from The Nation says 8 dead and 486 injured. The Nation reports 5 people killed.

Update 2: On Sunday morning more detailed reports are coming through. Bangkok Pundit has a foreign press round-up of Saturday's violence. Current reports say 15 dead and over 600 injured. The Nation has a Chronology of Black Saturday. Prachathai has a list of the 15 dead. Eight are civilians, one is a Japanese national, three are military and three unknown.

Eyewitness account of vaitor, a foreigner who was shot in the arm. Includes photos and video. On New Mandala a report from Nicholas Day titled War at Khao San.

This event also highlighted the value of Twitter as a news source. Richard Barrow tweets: "Only with the help of Twitter yesterday were non-Thai speakers able to find out what was going on."

Update 3: Latest report from AP says 18 dead, five soldiers and 13 civilians. Nirmal Ghosh on the spiral of violence.