In the children’s establishment, 22 children, between two and three years old, died, the police said, specifying that there were also 12 wounded, three of them seriously.
After the attack, the attacker fled the nursery by car and hit several pedestrians.
He then killed his wife and son, then killed himself, Vijitraithay reported.
“The attacker parked in front of the nursery, shot and killed four workers who were eating lunch in front of it,” Nanthicha Punchum, director of the center, told AFP.
“He kicked down the front door with his foot, walked in and started cutting off children’s heads with a knife,” he continued.
In video footage from the scene, several bereaved families could be seen in a shelter near the nursery, in the garden.
Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha expressed his condolences to the families and ordered an urgent investigation into this “horrible” tragedy.
The leader asked the chief of police “to go to the scene and speed up the investigations.”
“He tried to run over other people on the road. He collided with a motorcycle and two people were injured. I hurried away,” a witness, Paweena Purichan, 31, who was riding a motorcycle towards her store, told AFP.
“There was blood everywhere,” he added.