No group has yet said it carried out the attacks, but suspicion will likely fall on separatist insurgents.
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PHUKET, 7:45 a.m.: An explosion at Loma beach at the southern beach city injures one person.
Earlier Thursday, another bomb blew up in the southern province of Trang full of handsome beaches and tourist island killing one person and injuring six, according to Thai press reports.
At least 10 blasts have struck a string of southern cities and resorts over the past 24 hours, including Hua Hin, Surat Thani, Patong, Trang and Phang Nga. Another pair of bombs exploded Friday morning in Hua Hin, killing one person and wounding three. “It is just local sabotage that is restricted to limited areas and provinces”, national police deputy spokesman Piyapan Pingmuang said in Bangkok.
It was also unclear whether the blasts were related to an insurgency in Muslim-majority provinces in southern Thailand, he said.
Edwin Wiek, a resident of Hua Hin who was at the scene, told dpa that foreign tourists were among the injured.
Two explosions hit the southern province of Surat Thani around 8am local time (0100 GMT) today, one in front of the provincial police station and another in front of the maritime police station.
Tourism already suffered a setback almost a year ago after a bomb blast ripped through a Bangkok, killing 20 people, mostly visitors from other Asian countries.
Four people have been killed and dozens wounded in multiple bomb blasts across Thailand.
One Facebook user wrote: “Bombs have gone off in Hua Hin but we are all safe and well”.
A woman working at a food vending cart was killed, Police Lieutenant Colonel Samoer Yoosumran said. On Thursday, a town market in Trang was bombed, killing one and injuring seven others.
Those attacks killed a street vendor and wounded 21 other people in the beach city about 200 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of Bangkok.
Thai police had planned a news conference on the attacks on Friday, but delayed it after the latest reports about the blasts in Phuket came in. The tourists are rarely targeted in Thailand.
On Friday, Thailand celebrates Her Majesty the Queen’s Birthday.
Thailand’s 88-year-old King Bhumibol Adulayadej, the world’s longest reigning monarch, and his wife Sirikit are in hospital in Bangkok but have resided in recent years in the Klai Kangwon Palace royal palace, which translates as “Far from Worries Palace”, in Hua Hin. Nearly all the violence has been in the three southernmost provinces. Half an hour later, heading back to his hotel, he saw “a good few people injured and the whole area just panicking. the whole area was just shut down with police cars, ambulances”. The city is home to a swath of beachfront resorts as well as a royal palace.
Street protests were occasionally accompanied by isolated shootings or bombings before the military seized power.
The leader of the country’s military government suggested the attacks were a reaction to voters approving a constitution last weekend that would entrench the army’s political power.
The day before the bombings junta chief and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha made a speech boasting his government’s success in bringing stability back to Thailand, and defending to country’s monarchy.
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Two Uighur men from western China have been accused of the attack and are due to go on trial later this month.
