Wiriya Katchan, 45, along with his daughter Nucharin, 23, his nieces aged 14 and 11 and a nephew aged eight had left their house in Satuk district on Monday morning on a tractor to scoop up river sand for his home improvement project.
Wiriya took along his nieces and nephew as the children loved swimming in the river’s shallows, said Wiriya’s widow, Bang-Orn.
After the group failed to return at noon, she alerted police and a local rescue team to search for them. At 3pm their tractor was located on the riverbank. There was no sign of the five except for the children’s bags and shoes.
Police, volunteers and divers spent over three hours scouring the river before finding the bodies of the family lodged in the sand of the riverbed not far from each other.
Officials speculated that the first victim may…
