Chon Buri: A South Korean man fell to his death from the 10th floor balcony of a hotel in Pattaya yesterday.
Police were alerted to the incident at the 38-storey hotel in Bang Lamung district around 5am, said Pol Lt Puttharak Sonkhamhan of Pattaya City police station.
At the scene, police and rescuers from the Sawang Boriboon Thammasathan Foundation found the body of Byung Yong Lee, a 62-year-old farmer, who fell from the 10th-floor balcony of his room and landed on a fifth-floor terrace.
Hotel staff said the man was part of a group of South Korean tourists who had checked in the day before. One of his friends woke up in the middle of the night and noticed he was missing.
After calling the front desk for help, they found Lee's shoes still in his room. Looking over the balcony, they spotted what appeared to be a body below and called security, who found the body in the garden of the fifth-floor terrace.
During questioning, a friend of the man, through an interpreter, said he and Lee had been together for over 30 years.
After a night of drinking, they separated to return to their rooms.
When Lee's friend awoke and found him missing, he began searching, which led to the discovery of the body.
Pol Lt Puttharak said the man's body was taken for forensic examination at the Police General Hospital in Bangkok.
The death was the latest in a series of similar incidents in Pattaya.
On Thursday, a man from New Zealand fell to his death from a luxury hotel in this tourist city.
Other incidents included a Thai man who fell from a hotel on June 1, a Russian man from a condo on June 3, an American man from a hotel on June 4, and a German man from a hotel on June 6.
