CHIANG MAI — A university student in northern Thailand lost his left hand today after a homemade bomb he was assembling accidentally exploded, police said.
The student, whose identity is being withheld by Khaosod English, was seriously injured in the blast which occurred at a house in Chiang Mai province at around 12.30 pm today, according to a local police officer.
“We believe he was hired to build ‘giant fireworks’ and he was working on them at his rented home,” Police Lt. Col. Kachornsak Pandee of the San Sai Police Station said. “His house is fully equipped with things like gunpowder, tape, fertilizer and electric detonators.”
The house was rented to a second-year student from Maejo University, Kachornsak said, who was home alone when the explosion took place. Kachornsak said the student’s left hand and left leg were “completely destroyed” by the blast.
The student has been sent to hospital where he is in stable condition, police said.
Police reportedly found 13 small homemade explosives in the house. The biggest of them was 15 centimeters in diameter, Kachornsak said, adding that each device had a blast radius of about 15-20 meters and were designed to be detonated remotely.
Kachornsak said police are waiting for the student to recover before they interrogate him about his bomb-making home business.
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