Six bodies have been found in a luxury hotel in downtown Bangkok and their deaths may have been caused by poisoning, police and officials say.
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Bangkok police chief Lieutenant General Thiti Sangsawang identified the dead as two Vietnamese Americans and four Vietnamese nationals, and said there were three males and three females.
Investigators said the bodies were foaming at the mouth, an officer from the Lumpini police station said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorised to release information.
The victims had booked several rooms at the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel under seven names, and some were staying on a different floor from the room where they were found dead, Thiti said.
Police are still looking for the seventh person included in the booking, Thiti said at a news conference at the hotel.
He said there were no signs of a struggle. The residents of the room where the bodies were found were supposed to have checked out and their luggage had already been packed, he said.
The bodies were discovered by a maid who went to the room after they failed to check out and found it locked from the inside, Thiti said.
There was food that had been ordered earlier from room service that was left uneaten, but drinks had been consumed, Thiti added.
He would not confirm a cause of death, but said the deaths appeared to have occurred about 24 hours before police arrived on the scene on Tuesday evening local time after being called by hotel staff.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin went to the hotel, and later told journalists the incident was neither a robbery nor a random assault, and that it should not affect Thailand's lucrative tourism industry.
Pending the results of autopsies, "our hypothesis is that they ingested something that killed them", Srettha said.
Australian Associated Press
