"There were seven officers in the bank at the time, mostly women. Out of nowhere, a man telephoned and said: 'I've put a bomb in your bank'. An assistant to the manager who took the call simply replied,  'Thank you'.

"When he hung up, he shouted that he'd just been told there was a bomb in the bank. Luckily, a large group of customers had just left. The two remaining customers hurried out of the bank.

"We panicked, but we discussed what to do. We didn't know whether the caller planned to threaten us and then come back to get money after we left. So we agreed not to leave.

"After a little while, a bomb exploded at the Siam Commercial Bank. At that time we thought the caller wanted to distract the police by bombing Siam Commercial but calling us. The police officer stationed at our bank had to help at Siam Commercial, so only we were left.

"We were not so confident if the threat was real so we decided to protect ourselves. We sought for places to hide in case it really exploded. "But actually we barely found such places. Our office is very small so we hid under the table behind the counter. Then it exploded.

"We were shocked, thinking had it really happened to us? Yes! We were bombed! The female officers were scared. They hugged each other and cried. A girl had just came from Bangkok to be an apprentice. She cried, another screamed.

"When our consciousness came back, we checked if anybody was injured. Luckily, nobody was. We were so lucky, as the bomb was only three or four metres away from where we were.

"Knowing no one was hurt, some of us wanted to run away as we didn't know whether there were more bombs around. But after discussion we agreed not to leave. It would be more dangerous if the bombs were set in front of the bank, or if the bomber shot us from outside.

"We waited for a while. Then a bomb squad came in. I'm still shocked even now. I can't believe this really happened to us."

Somroutai Sapsomboon

The Nation