A member of the Thai security forces was killed early on Sunday in a raid into a shopping mall to try to stop a soldier on a shooting rampage, bringing the total death toll to 21, the health minister said.
Two other members of the forces were wounded during the raid, Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters as further explosions and shooting echoed from the Terminal 21 mall in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima.
Reuters video images showed one casualty being wheeled out to an ambulance. Another staggered from the building barechested as he was helped onto a stretcher.
The shooting spree began on Saturday afternoon when the soldier opened fire at a house before moving to an army base and then the shopping mall in Nakhon Ratchasima, which is about 250 km (155 miles) from the capital Bangkok, police said.
"We don't know why he did this. It appears he went mad," Defence Ministry spokesman Kongcheep Tantrawanit told Reuters.
Police closed off streets around the mall and kept journalists behind a security cordon.
Thai media said the suspected shooter had worked at an army base close to Nakhon Ratchasima, which is about 250 km (155 miles) from the capital Bangkok. Before the attack, Jakrapanth had posted on his Facebook account that he was out for vengeance -- but he did not say for what.
'IT APPEARS HE WENT MAD'
"We don't know why he did this. It appears he went mad," Defence Ministry spokesman Kongcheep Tantrawanit told Reuters.
Overnight, soldiers and police stormed into the mall and escorted hundreds of trapped people to safety.
"It was frightening because I could hear the occasional gunshot ... we waited a long time for the police to come and help us, many hours." said Suvanarat Jirattanasakul, 27, her voice trembling after she emerged.
The mall was busy with shoppers on a long weekend for the Buddhist Makha Bucha holiday.
CCTV footage from inside the mall posted on social media showed the gunman dressed in black and wearing a mask, his gun slung over his shoulder with no sign of other people around.
Facebook said it had removed the suspect's account.
"There is no place on Facebook for people who commit this kind of atrocity, nor do we allow people to praise or support this attack," a Facebook representative said in a statement.
Major shootings are rare in the Southeast Asian country other than in the far south, where a decades-old insurgency persists.
Nakhon Ratchasima is one of the biggest cities in northeastern Thailand, an island of relative prosperity in a rice growing area that is one of the poorest parts of the country of 69 million people.
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