Two Canadian sisters found dead in their hotel room on a popular Thai resort island may have been the victims of “serious food poisoning”, police said yesterday.
The bodies of Audrey and Noemi Belanger, aged 20 and 26, were found on Friday by hotel staff on Phi Phi Island in the Andaman Sea, 800km south of Bangkok. Both bodies showed signs of having suffered from an extreme toxic reaction.
EXTREME TOXICITY
“Forensic officials found vomit in the room, blood on their lips and gums and their fingernails and toenails were blue,” Lieutenant Colonel Rat Somboon of Krabi Provincial Police said, adding there were “signs of serious food poisoning.”
“They died more than 12 hours before being found. They had eaten meals outside the hotel,” he said.
The bodies of the sisters, who were from Canada’s French-speaking Quebec Province, were taken from Phi Phi to the nearby town of Krabi on Thailand’s Andaman seaboard, where a probe into the cause of the deaths was already underway, he added.
Lieutenant Pongpan Waiyawat, of Phi Phi’s police force said more details would be released “once there is some progress.” He added that there was no indication of a violent struggle or foul play inside their room at the Palm Residence Hotel.
PARADISE LOST
Thailand is a tourist magnet but its image as the “Land of Smiles” has been tarnished in recent years by deadly political unrest, devastating floods and, more recently, a bungled bomb plot involving Iranian suspects.
Phi Phi island is one of Thailand’s tourist jewels, made famous by the 2000 film The Beach starring Leonardo DiCaprio and was rebuilt after it was devastated by the 2004 tsunami.
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