Seven people, including teachers and students, were killed and 23 others injured by a student who opened fire at a school in Thailand on Friday before killing himself, authorities said.

Thai national police spokesperson, Trairong Phiwphan, confirmed the casualties to Reuters, stating that seven were killed included the student shooter, who reportedly turned his weapon on himself after the attack.

The incident took place in the Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi province north of Bangkok. Police identified the perpetrator as a student.

Police later reported that the student shooter also shot and killed grandparents at their home before opening fire at school.

Police said the shooter, who was 14 years old, fired at least 26 bullets, and was found with 34 additional ammunition rounds. The gun had belonged to his grandfather, police said.

Teachers react while standing at Debsirin Nonthaburi School, the site of a shooting incident, in Bang Kruai district in Nonthaburi province on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand, August 7, 2026.
Teachers react while standing at Debsirin Nonthaburi School, the site of a shooting incident, in Bang Kruai district in Nonthaburi province on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand, August 7, 2026. (credit: REUTERS/Chalinee Thirasupa)

One 18-year-old student told Reuters he initially thought there were firecrackers going off or someone banging an object.

"I didn't think it was a gun at first," he said, "There were many shots: bang bang bang. Then it went quiet. Then it started again."

In photos circulated by emergency workers, students streamed out of the Debsirin Nonthaburi School, on the northwestern outskirts of Bangkok, as ambulances operated.

In one photo, one person is seen lying down on a stretcher outside an ambulance, while another is attended to by a medic.

The shooting represents the worst mass killing in the Southeast Asian nation since 2022.

In the 2025 academic year, the school had an enrollment of around 3,100 students and 147 teachers, according to district authorities.

Second school shooting this year

It is the second school shooting in Thailand this year after a teacher died and a student was injured in the south of the country in February.

Emergency worker Kiatikhun Verapongpradith, 47, described arriving as the shooting was ongoing and his team treated students with injuries in the back, chest and arms. They found a male teacher lying dead on an upper floor of the school, and in another room they found a female teacher with wounds in her chest and arm.

"We gave CPR for about 30 minutes and rushed her to the hospital as we could not get her heart rate up, but we tried our best," he said.

In the 2025 academic year, the school had an enrollment of around 3,100 students and 147 teachers, according to district authorities.

Deputy Education Minister Akkharanan Kannakittinan said in a statement he was coordinating to provide assistance.

History of shootings in Thailand

Gun ownership and gun violence are not uncommon in Thailand, which has seen a series of deadly shootings in the past six years, with children among the victims.

Thailand's worst mass killing by a single perpetrator in its recent history took place in 2022, when a former policeman ran amok in a three-hour gun-and-knife attack in the northeast that killed 36 people, including 22 children stabbed as they slept at a daycare center.

A gunman killed five people, including security guards and a vendor at a Bangkok market in July 2025 before turning the gun on himself, while a teacher died in the southern city of Hat Yai in February this year when a shooter opened fire at a school where she worked.

In 2020, a soldier killed 29 people in a shooting rampage in Nakhon Ratchasima. And in 2023, a 14-year-old used a modified handgun to kill two people and wound five others at a luxury Bangkok shopping center.