BANG KRUAI, Thailand–A Thai teenager killed at least five people and himself at a school outside Bangkok on Friday after fatally shooting his grandparents, police said, in the Southeast Asian nation's worst mass killing since 2022.
Those killed at the school were all teachers and staff, and police said the 14-year-old shooter, a student, fired at least 26 bullets using a gun that belonged to his grandfather. An additional 34 rounds were found, police said.
Students streamed out of the Debsirin Nonthaburi School, on the capital's northwestern outskirts, as the wounded were loaded onto ambulances and teachers hugged each other and cried. In photos circulated by emergency workers, one person is seen lying down on a stretcher outside an ambulance, while another is attended to by a medic.
Police said 23 people were wounded in the incident, the latest in a succession of high-profile shootings in recent years in Thailand, which has by far the largest number of guns in civilian possession in Southeast Asia, and among the most per capita in Asia, according to a 2017 estimate by the Small Arms Survey.
One 18-year-old student told Reuters he initially thought there were firecrackers going off or someone banging an object.
"I didn't think it was a gun at first," he said. "There were many shots: bang, bang, bang. Then it went quiet. Then it started again."
Education Minister Prasert Jantararuangtong told Reuters that both teachers and students were among the casualties. The motive for the shooting was being investigated, he told reporters.
Emergency worker Kiatikhun Verapongpradith, 47, described arriving as the shooting was ongoing and his team treated students with injuries in the back, chest and arms. They found a male teacher lying dead on an upper floor of the school, and in another room they found a female teacher with wounds in her chest and arm.
He said he was called to treat the teenage shooter after hearing a final shot.
"We rushed up and found that the perpetrator had shot himself in the right side of the head and collapsed. When we got up there, we checked his pulse, he still had one, so we started CPR."
Health Minister Pattana Promphat said 22 people were injured, with nine in critical condition. Some were injured from causes such as falls, and it wasn't clear how many were shot.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul offered his condolences and said he had ordered relevant officials to take care of the victims.
"This is terrible for something like this to happen," Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters. "I'm sad for those who died and sad for something like this to happen in our country."
Thailand had an estimated 10.3 million firearms held by civilians, equating to around 15 guns per 100 residents, the Small Arms Survey estimated.