Three dead after shooting at major shopping centre in Bangkok

People fleeing from the shopping centre in Bangkok, Thailand (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Three people have been killed and six injured after a shooting at a major shopping centre in Thailand’s capital city, Bangkok.

Police said a suspect was apprehended less than an hour after the first reported gunshots at the Siam Paragon shopping centre and has been taken into custody.

Police spokesman Archayon Kraithong told reporters the situation was under control at the complex, which sells high-end clothing and luxury cars and includes a cinema, an aquarium and the five-star Siam Kempinski hotel.

Ambulances outside an exit of the Siam Paragon shopping centre (AP Photo/Tian Macleod Ji)

Three people were killed and six were injured, according to Yutthana Sretthanan, director of Bangkok’s Emergency Medical Centre.

The incident happened days before Thais were planning to mark the anniversary of a gun and knife attack at a rural daycare centre in a north-eastern province that killed 36 people, most of them young children, on October 6, 2022.

Tuesday’s shooting prompted authorities to shut access to the nearby Siam elevated train stop, preventing commuters from exiting the station as the evening rush hour began and heavy rain fell in the city, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene.

Emergency services personnel could be seen entering the shopping centre as sirens wailed outside.

Witnesses said crowds of people left the building, one of several shopping centres in the area popular with tourists and Thais alike.

Workers gather near the shopping centre after it was evacuated (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Chinese tourist Liu Shiying told the AP that she saw people running and saying someone had opened fire. She said she heard gunshots and an alarm ringing, and that the lights in the shopping centre went out.

“We’re temporarily hiding. Who dares to go out?” she said while taking cover. She was later able to leave.

Multiple videos uploaded to social media showed people running out of the building and a person dressed in a baseball cap, dark shirt and camouflage pants holding a handgun.

Video posted later showed what appeared to be the assailant surrendering to police.

Gun violence is not uncommon in Thailand, though mass shootings are rare.

In 2020, a disgruntled soldier opened fire in and around a shopping centre in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima, killing 29 people and holding off security forces for some 16 hours before eventually being killed by them.