Section 221: Causing an explosion likely to endanger persons or property
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดกระทำให้เกิดระเบิดจนน่าจะเป็นอันตรายแก่บุคคลอื่น หรือทรัพย์ของผู้อื่น ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกไม่เกินเจ็ดปี และปรับไม่เกินหนึ่งแสนสี่หมื่นบาท หมายเหตุ: [อัตราโทษ แก้ไขเพิ่มเติมโดยมาตรา ๔ แห่งพระราชบัญญัติแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมประมวลกฎหมายอาญา (ฉบับที่ ๒๖) พ.ศ. ๒๕๖๐]
English translation
Whoever causes an explosion likely to be dangerous to another person or to the property of another shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding seven years and a fine not exceeding one hundred and forty thousand baht.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
This is the basic explosion offence, and the test is likelihood rather than result: an explosion likely to be dangerous to another person or to another's property is enough, with no proof of actual harm. It should not be confused with Section 222, which applies where the explosion actually endangers property of the kind described in Sections 217 or 218 and imports those heavier penalties. The penalty here is up to seven years and a fine of up to 140,000 baht.
Why this matters in practice
Section 221 sets its own penalty and does not escalate to any other section: up to seven years and a fine of up to 140,000 baht, both imposed. The offence is complete once the explosion was likely to endanger another person or another person's property, so no injury and no damage need be proved, and the usual contest is over whether that likelihood existed. Three neighbouring provisions are regularly confused with it. Section 220 is the fire offence, not the explosion offence. Section 222 is where an explosion actually endangers property of the kind listed in Section 217 or Section 218, and it is that section, not this one, that imports those far heavier scales. Section 223 runs the other way and reduces the penalty to not more than three years where the property was of little value and the act was not likely to endanger anyone. The offence is against the public, so it is not compoundable and the prosecution does not depend on a complaint.
Cited in 13 Supreme Court decisions (1965 to 2024)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 8584/2547 (2004)
- Decision 2961/2535 (1992)
- Decision 234/2528 (1985)
- Decision 1239/2527 (1984)
- Decision 1526/2512 (1969)
- Decision 685/2567 (2024)
- Decision 3322/2563 (2020)
- Decision 7997/2561 (2018)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 83 11
- Section 91 10
- Section 80 9
- Section 90 7
- Section 78 7
- Section 288 7
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
-
Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 221 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 221. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-221/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 221 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-221/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-221/"><p>Whoever causes an explosion likely to be dangerous to another person or to the property of another shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding seven years and a fine not exceeding one hundred and forty thousand baht.</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 221 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-221/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.