Top Asia Pacific Breaking News: Latest Updates

BANGKOK (AP) - The death toll from a huge fire in a Bangkok music bar has increased to 30, officials said Tuesday, as the investigation into the blaze proceeded while relatives of the victims took on the grim task of identifying their loved ones and retrieving their bodies. More than 70 people were injured in the Sunday night tragedy, with 24 of them still in critical condition, according to a statement by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. Initial details about the victims, which have not been updated since Monday, said 18 of the dead were women and nine were men, all Thai except one bar employee from Laos.

BANGKOK (AP) - A blaze at the Rong Beer Na Ladprao music bar in northern Bangkok was the city's deadliest fire in 17 years. The fire broke out late Sunday and spread quickly, leaving blown-out windows facing the street and beer bottles still standing on charred tables inside the venue. Police said many victims were found in windowless bathrooms where they may have gone to try to escape. Former patrons of the bar and other mourners left flowers at the site. ___ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Thai authorities are investigating a Bangkok bar fire that killed at least 30 people and injured dozens more, the latest in a long history of catastrophic fires at bars, clubs, and other nightlife venues worldwide. Experts say the high death toll may reflect factors common to past entertainment venue fires, including inadequate safety measures. The blaze, which broke out shortly before midnight Sunday, apparently spread rapidly across a ceiling lined with flammable decorative materials before reaching the main entrance. Local media suggest crowded conditions, obstructed escape routes, and panic may have hampered evacuation. Here's what to know about the fire: Videos shared online by witnesses show a blaze engulfing the Na Ladprao music bar as thick black smoke pours from the front entrance and people scramble to flee.

A fire at a music bar in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, killed at least 30 people and injured dozens, prompting an investigation into its cause and the factors contributing to the casualties, including whether any emergency exits may have been obstructed. The blaze at the Rong Beer Na Ladprao bar in northern Bangkok is one of the deadliest club fires in Thailand since 2009, when 67 people died in a fire at a nightclub on New Year's Day. Here is a look at some other nightclub, bar and music venue fires that have led to significant death tolls: - January 2026: A fire at a bar in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana in the early hours of New Year's Day left 41 people dead and over 100 injured.

BEIJING (AP) - A senior official has been expelled from China's ruling Communist Party, state media said Tuesday, the latest to fall in Chinese leader Xi Jinping's long-running anti-corruption campaign. Ma Xingrui was a member of the Politburo, the 24-member body made up of top party leaders. State media referred to him as a former member in their latest reports. He is one of three members of the current Politburo, whose term runs from 2022 to 2027, to be purged in the anti-corruption campaign. The other two are military generals. Analysts see the campaign as an important tool to enforce loyalty to Xi as well as root out corruption.

HONG KONG (AP) - China's exports accelerated in June, jumping 27% from a year earlier thanks partly to the boom in artificial intelligence, the customs agency said Tuesday. The increase in exports in June was much better than economists had expected. Exports rose 19.4% year-on-year in May. Imports in June surged 36%, better than May's 27.4% year-on-year growth, with analysts attributing the expansion in part due to the Iran war driving up import costs. China recorded a trade surplus of $125.6 billion in June, widening from $105.4 billion in the previous month. "With the rapid growth of AI, our imports and export of products in this field are robust," Wang Jun, vice minister of China's General Administration of Customs, said at a news conference in Beijing.

BEIJING (AP) - The top mine safety official in one of China's major coal producing regions is under investigation for corruption following a gas explosion that killed 82 workers in May. Hu Haijun, the director of the Shanxi Bureau of the National Mine Safety Administration, is suspected of serious violations of discipline and law, the government's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said Monday evening. A brief notice posted on the commission's website did not provide any details on the violations. Hu, also the Communist Party chief of his bureau, is the highest-ranking official to be caught up in a widening probe of Shanxi province's coal mining sector, according to Caixin, a Chinese business publication.

SYDNEY (AP) - The United Nations refugee agency is investigating reports that two boats carrying members of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority have capsized in the Bay of Bengal. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement Tuesday that the boats reportedly departed Myanmar's western state of Rakhine in late June before sinking. "We are deeply concerned by the potential loss of life and are working to verify further details," the UNHCR said. The agency declined to release additional details, including how many Rohingya were believed to be on board or the approximate location where the boats sank. Around 1.2 million stateless, predominantly Muslim Rohingya remain trapped in squalid, overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh after fleeing waves of violence by Myanmar's security forces.

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Clashes between police and supporters of an outlawed political group left at least one police officer dead and several others wounded on Tuesday in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir, officials said. The violence erupted after Pakistani authorities reopened roads that followers of the banned Joint Awami Action Committee had blocked for nearly a month. Residents have complained of food and medicine shortages as well as restricted transport due to the group's blockade, according to a police statement. The region's home secretary, Chaudhry Guftar Hussain, accused armed members of the group of killing the officer by opening indiscriminate fire. Hussain announced earlier Tuesday that security forces were launching an operation across Pakistan-administered Kashmir "to clear all roads blocked by the banned Jammu and Kashmir Awami Action Committee at entry and exit points." The Joint Awami Action Committee is an alliance of several groups that has been staging sit-ins at multiple locations since last month, demanding the abolition of 12 seats in the regional Legislative Assembly reserved for refugees who migrated to Pakistan from Indian-controlled Kashmir decades ago.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - A distinguished American marine biologist has been shot dead by three men who entered his house in the central Philippines, police said on Tuesday. Kent Carpenter, 73, was with his Filipina companion in a house in the coastal town of Sibulan, in Negros Oriental province, on Sunday night when the masked men forced their way in. One drew a gun and shot Carpenter in the head, killing him instantly, police said his companion told them. The men took a laptop, an unspecified amount of cash and a backpack before fleeing, national police spokesperson Col. Allen Rae Co told reporters.