A policeman inspects the cordoned-off site of a bomb blast at the popular Erawan Shrine in the heart of Bangkok's tourist and commercial center on Tuesday. The death toll has risen to 20, with more than 120 wounded, police said. Photo: AFP

 

Inset: Screenshots from CCTV footage show a suspect in the bombing wearing a backpack and later walking away without one near Erawan Shrine on Monday. Photo: IC

Thai authorities said on Tuesday they were looking for a suspect seen on closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage near a popular shrine where a bomb blast killed 20 people in the "worst ever attack" on the kingdom.

Six Chinese people were among the dead that also included Singaporean, Indonesian and Malaysian citizens, as well as local people. More than 120 were injured, police said.

The government said the attack during the Monday evening rush hour around 7 pm, in the capital's bustling commercial hub, was aimed at destroying the economy. No one has claimed responsibility.

Raising tensions in the city on Tuesday, a small explosive was thrown from a bridge over a canal but no one was injured, a police officer at the scene said.

National police chief Somyot Pumpanmuang said late Tuesday that the bomb thrown from Sathorn pier and at the shrine are the work of the same perpetrators, the Bangkok Post reported.

Somyot earlier said the suspect, who was wearing a yellow shirt and seen in a first CCTV image with a backpack and then in a later one without the bag, could be Thai or a foreigner.

The suspect walks calmly into the tourist attraction with a backpack and then sits down. Moments later, he takes the backpack off, stands up and walks out holding only a blue plastic bag and what appears to be a mobile phone.

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said the attack is the worst ever in Thailand, as he talked about the suspect.

Police were deployed to the blood-splattered site on Tuesday searching for clues to an attack that could dent tourism and investor confidence.

The Thai baht fell 0.57 percent to 35.57 baht, its weakest in more than six years, on concern the bombing may scare off visitors. Thai stocks fell as much as 3 percent.

Tourism accounts for about 10 percent of the economy and the government had been banking on a record number of visitors this year following a sharp fall in 2014 because of protests and the coup.

Police earlier said they had not ruled out any group, including elements opposed to the military government, for the bombing, although officials said the attack did not match the tactics of Muslim insurgents in the south.

The Bangkok blast comes at a sensitive time for Thailand, which has been riven for a decade by a sometimes violent struggle for power between political factions in Bangkok.

Occasional small blasts over recent years have been blamed on one side of the domestic political divide or the other. In February, two pipe bombs exploded outside a shopping mall in the same area as the Monday blast but caused little damage.

An interim parliament hand-picked by a junta that seized power in a 2014 coup is due to vote on a controversial draft constitution next month. Critics have criticized the draft as intended to help secure the military's grip on power.

Thai police also said it is not ruling out "the conflict of ethnic Uyghurs whom Thailand sent back to China."

Thailand repatriated 109 illegal immigrants from China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region last month. Some of them had tried to go through Thailand, Turkey and further to the Middle East to join jihadists or the Islamic State, according to Chinese authorities. A Thai consulate in Istanbul was attacked by local protesters shortly afterward.

Strong condemnation

China on Tuesday urged Thai authorities to fully investigate the bomb blast in Bangkok, and to severely punish the perpetrators.

China "expresses strong condemnation" of the bombing, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement posted on its website.

Fang Wei from Kunming, Yunnan Province, was on vacation in Thailand with her husband and child. She was injured in her stomach by flying shrapnel after the bomb exploded. "I felt extreme pain in my stomach at that time, I tried to run away but I couldn't stand up," Fang told the People's Daily at a Bangkok hospital. Her husband and child, who suffered slight injuries, were treated at another hospital.

Some of the victims' relatives have arrived in Bangkok after being notified by the Chinese Embassy.