A drunken Thai man upset at his in-laws shot dead six family members – including his two young children – before killing himself at a New Year party that spiraled out of control, police said on Tuesday.
The mass shooting occurred 10 minutes after midnight in the southern province of Chumphon after Sucheep Sornsung joined his wife’s family to ring in the New Year.
Sucheep was “heavily” drunk when he pulled out his pistol at the table in the beauty parlor where the party was being hosted in Phato district, police said.
“All of the victims were his family members including his nine-year-old son and six-year-old daughter,” Lieutenant Colonel Larp Kampapan of Phato police told Agence France-Presse.
“They were shot either in the head or the torso… he was angry that as the son-in-law he was not being made welcome by his wife’s family.”
The gunman then turned the weapon on himself. The other four victims were two men and two women aged between 47 and 71.
Thailand has high rates of gun ownership and petty personal disputes, romantic and business rivalries are often resolved with bullets.
Meanwhile, officials in western Thailand have said that large dams in the country’s west were not affected by three earthquakes that occurred on late Sunday night and early Sunday morning.
The first quake, which registered 4.9 on the Richter scale, struck Kanchanaburi province – two kilometers under Si Sawat district – just before 11pm on Sunday night.
It was followed by two aftershocks in the same area, one with 1.6 magnitude at 12.01am, and another of 3.0 magnitude 10 kilometers underground at 5.02am on Monday.
Vibrations were felt across the western provinces with cracks allegedly found in local hospitals. However, no injuries were reported.
The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), said the Vajiralongkorn and Srinagarind dams were 55 to 60 kilometers from the epicenter of the quakes and not damaged.
– with reporting by AFP