At least 7 dead after Thai tourist boat sinks

A speed boat packed with tourists heading to the Thai island of Koh Samui after an all-night beach party capsized on Tuesday, killing at least seven people, including several Westerners, police said.

The accident off Thailand’s east coast came just a month after thousands of foreign tourists died in the Indian Ocean tsunami along the country’s western shoreline.

Seventeen people were reported missing, including three Swedes, two Hungarians, a Swiss, a German, an Austrian, a Norwegian and a Briton, said a police officer on Samui island.

The dead were identified as an American man in his 30s, two other Western men, a Western woman, and three Thais, he said. The U.S. embassy in Bangkok declined to confirm an American had died, but said it was sending to two consular officers to Samui.

Thai authorities said the accident may have been caused by overcrowding on the 40-seat, open-air motor boat which was carrying up to 54 tourists.

The boat was heading to Samui from jungle-clad Pa Ngan island, where thousands of backpackers and Thais gather at every full moon for an all-night alcohol and drug-fuelled beach party.

“The speed boat was taking tourists back from the overnight full-moon party on Pa Ngan island back to Samui and sank at dawn,” Colonel Bundid Tungkaseranee told Reuters from a rescue helicopter.

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An injured Thai survivor told visiting Interior Minister Bhokin Bhalakula, who took a helicopter trip to Samui from the main tsunami victim identification center in Phuket, that the boat was so crowded passengers had to stand on board.

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“There was no space for me to sit and no one was offered a life vest,” Intat Haechoo, a 28-year-old from northern Thailand, told Bhokin from his hospital bed.

Vijit Vichaisan, the governor of Surat Thani, the southeastern province which includes the paradise islands that served as the inspiration for cult backpacker novel and movie “The Beach,” said no crash marks had been found on the bottom of the boat.

The vessel’s life vests were still in place and did appear to have been handed out, he told Bhokin.

“Frogmen also found that the drainage tube fell off from the boat, which might have been another cause for it to capsize,” Vijit said, in the presence of reporters.