A man believed to be Korean disappeared in floods in Pattaya, Thailand... police search

(Hanoi = Yonhap News) Correspondent Park Jin-hyung = A man believed to be Korean went missing after being swept away by a flood near Pattaya, a famous tourist destination in Thailand, and the police launched a search.

According to local media outlet Pattaya News on the 27th (local time), one of three men who was walking on a flooded road in the Nongpruh area near Pattaya, Chonburi Province, central Thailand, went missing around 5 a.m. on the 24th after falling into a drainage ditch.

Nearby closed-circuit (CCTV) footage showed two of the three men falling into a roadside ditch, one of them escaping onto the road, and the other disappearing after being swept away by the water.

On that day, heavy rain poured down in the Pattaya area for more than an hour, submerging many parts of the city.

After the accident, local authorities deployed divers and searched the drainage ditch and nearby waterways, but no traces of the missing person were found.

After the accident, the remaining two men reportedly left the scene without contacting the authorities and their whereabouts have not been confirmed since.

The next day, local police searched a house believed to be the residence of these three people, about 1km away from the scene of the accident, and found wet clothes that appeared to be identical to the clothes of the other two people captured on CCTV.

They also found computer equipment and household items, including three PC sets that appeared to be new.

The owner of the house told the police that three Korean men signed a one-year rental contract and moved in on the 12th.

The police began to identify the three Koreans who rented the house in cooperation with immigration authorities to determine if they were the same men as the men at the time of the accident.

To this end, the police are searching for the whereabouts of the remaining two people and are also investigating the source and use of equipment such as PCs.

Meanwhile, heavy rain of around 300 mm poured down in the Bangkok area for 48 hours from the 24th to the previous day, flooding many parts of the city.

As a result, many houses, buildings, and roads were flooded and traffic was halted, and many businesses were closed, including the state-run Government Savings Bank, which closed some branches in Bangkok and surrounding areas the day before.

The afternoon before, Bangkok Mayor Chatchat Sitthiphan issued a statement announcing that all 50 districts of Bangkok would be declared disaster areas due to flooding.

Mayor Chachat said that the authorities have installed about 200 shelters at temples and schools to accommodate about 4,200 victims, and that the city's drainage pumps are fully operational to extract a total of 1,200 cubic meters of water per second.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Chanwirakkun, who was originally scheduled to return from the UK on this day, also announced on Facebook that he would move up his return schedule and visit the affected area soon.