A man believed to be South Korean remains missing after being swept away by floodwaters near Pattaya in eastern Thailand, local media reported Sunday.
The man disappeared around 5 a.m. Thursday in Nong Prue, Chonburi province, after falling into a roadside drainage channel while walking through a flooded area with two other men.
Security camera footage showed two men being pulled into the drain. One managed to get back onto the road, but the other was carried away by the current.
Pattaya had been hit by more than an hour of heavy rain that morning, leaving roads and low-lying areas across the city flooded.
Rescue workers, including divers, searched drainage channels and nearby waterways but found no sign of the missing man.
Police have also been trying to identify the three men, who are believed to be South Korean nationals. The two men who survived the incident left the area without contacting authorities and have not been located, according to local reports.
A day after the disappearance, police searched a house about 1 kilometer from the scene where the three men were believed to have been staying. Inside, officers found wet clothes resembling those worn by the two men seen in the security footage. They also found three apparently new desktop computers, other computer equipment and household items.
The landlord told police that three South Korean men had signed a one-year lease on the property and moved in on Sept. 12.
Police are working with immigration authorities to confirm whether the tenants were the men involved in the incident. Investigators are also seeking the two surviving men and looking into where the computer equipment came from and its use.
The flooding around Pattaya came as unusually heavy rain caused widespread disruption elsewhere in Thailand, including Bangkok.
About 300 millimeters of rain fell across parts of the Bangkok metropolitan area over 48 hours beginning Thursday, flooding homes, buildings and roads and disrupting traffic.
The Government Savings Bank closed several branches in Bangkok and surrounding areas Saturday, while other businesses were also forced to suspend operations.
Bangkok Gov. Chadchart Sittipunt said Saturday that all 50 districts of the capital had been declared disaster zones because of the flooding.
More than 200 temporary shelters had been opened at temples, schools and other facilities, providing accommodation for some 4,200 displaced residents, he said. The city's drainage pumps were operating at full capacity, removing a combined 1,200 cubic meters of water per second.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, who had been due to return from Britain on Sunday, said on Facebook that he would return earlier than scheduled and visit flood-affected areas.
yeeun@heraldcorp.com
