A last minute call to avoid a busy footpath near the Bangkok shrine hit by a bomb, has saved the lives of Australian rock icon Jimmy Barnes and his family.

Barnes, his Thai-Australian wife (Jane), daughter, other family and a friend had been on their way to dinner and chose to take a bridge to a restaurant, rather than the street-side route.

This meant the group of six did not walk past the Erawan Shrine as a bomb blast went off, killing at least 19 and injuring more than 120.

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The bomb struck while the group crossed the bridge to dinner, shaking the walkway and the glass lining overhead.

“It was a really loud explosion and Jimmy, Jane and I knew it wasn’t thunder, a car backfiring or fireworks,” Barnes’ journalist friend Alan Parkhouse wrote in Fairfax.

“We had just walked right above the spot where the bomb had gone off and were about 50 metres away when the blast shook the walkway and the glass almost shattered.

“The closed-in walkway shook and almost buckled from the shockwave of the blast.”

We have been able to cross back to our hotel. Bombs diffused. Bodies still covered on road, terrible, so sad #bangkok pic.twitter.com/TQm3xqq8w2

— Jane Barnes (@jane13barnes) August 17, 2015

The group rushed to the safety of the hotel, trying to “decide the safest place to be”. Mr Parkhouse described “chaotic” scenes inside the hotel foyer.

The bombing happened in a busy area in central Bangkok where there are a number of shopping malls and hotels attracting scores of international tourists.

They eventually went to dinner and kept checking updates about the carnage on their phones. During the meal Barnes and Mr Parkhouse went to a shop close to the scene to get Barnes’ child a nappy.

After the meal the group returned safe to the hotel room: “It was a night to remember, and we all thanked our lucky stars that we took the overhead route and hadn’t walked across the road.”