At least one person was killed and six others wounded on Tuesday during a shooting at a luxury shopping center in Bangkok, Thailand. A teenage boy (14) was arrested in the shopping center in connection with the shooting.
Hundreds of people were left in awe when several shots were fired in the luxury Siam Paragon shopping center at around 16:30 (local time).
“At around 16:30 I heard loud gunshots, continuously, about 10 times,” says Thanpawasit Singthongkham (31), who works at a Japanese restaurant in the shopping centre.
Video material shows how a teenage boy with long hair, dressed in a black shirt, glasses and a cap with an American flag motif on it, is arrested by the Thai police.
Yuthana Srettanan, director of the Erawan Emergency Center, says a preliminary investigation indicates that a Chinese woman was shot dead in the shopping center.
Six other people were wounded and five of them are in a critical condition. All but one of the persons wounded are women.
Eyewitnesses say chaotic scenes unfolded this afternoon at Siam Paragon, one of Bangkok’s premier shopping destinations that is extremely popular with tourists and Thai citizens.
AFP saw footage of terrified shoppers ducking under metal security gates and blocking store entrances. The people end up running down a set of emergency stairs as sirens wail.
In another video, shared on Facebook and confirmed as genuine by AFP, scores of people can be seen in the mall’s underground car park. The people are accompanied by announcements over loudspeakers.
Dozens of police vehicles and several ambulances could be seen outside one of the shopping center’s main entrances in the aftermath of the incident.
“We didn’t know what was happening, then staff from a shop asked us to go in and said there was someone shooting,” says the Chinese tourist Xiong Ying.
“Everyone tried to find a hiding place. So many people were terrified; just like a scene in the zombie movies.”
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin told reporters that the attacker had been apprehended and the situation was under control.
