A British tourist who vanished from his family holiday on a party hotspot in Thailand has been found dead in a storm drain.
Fraser Wright, 37, from Swindon was pulled from the open sewer on Wednesday morning, hours after reportedly going out to drink alone on the island of Phuket.
His family sparked a missing person’s search when he didn’t return to the Seaview Hotel after leaving at 10pm on Tuesday.
His body wasn’t discovered until 9.30am the next morning when emergency services were called to the scene outside Tawan Bike Shop in Patong.
Local media reports suggest that Mr Wright was caught on CCTV peering into the drain, which carries rainwater from storms into the sea, before climbing over the one-metre-high barrier and falling in.
He is believed to have been dead for five or six hours before he was found.
According to local news outlet Khasod, an autopsy carried out at Vachira Phuket Hospital didn’t identify any further wounds and there is no suggestion of any foul play.
The UK Foreign Office said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Thailand and are in contact with the local authorities.”
Mr Wright is the latest in a string of tragic cases involving Britons dying in Thailand.
In April, Ryan Ralph, 24, fell from an overnight train as he backpacked through the country with his girlfriend, Shona Morgan, 22.
The tragedy happened when Mr Ralph went to have a cigarette, leaving Ms Morgan asleep.
It’s believed that as he stood between carriages, he lost his footing and fell onto the tracks. A major hunt for him was carried out before his body was found.
More than 28 million foreign tourists visited Thailand last year, spending 1.2 trillion baht ($33.71 billion) in the country, where other key sectors of the economy have been slow in recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.
