Three people have now been confirmed dead in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok’s governor said.

Chadchart Sittipunt also warned of the possibility of aftershocks. Authorities in the Thai capital have already received 169 calls about building damage.

A British holidaymaker described how window panes started “popping out of the side” of the building next to his hotel as the earthquake hit Bangkok.

“We were out by the pool on the 11th floor at the Rembrandt Hotel and my girlfriend asked me if the floor was moving when she was lying on the bed. And then suddenly I realised it was also moving,” Kurt Bull, from Norwich, said.

He is spending ten days on holiday in Thailand with his Swedish partner, Sigrid.

“Then the building beside the Rembrandt started moving a lot and was really creaking,” he said. “You could hear cracking of the structure, and the smaller glass windows were popping out at the side of the building.

“When we went to leave the pool area, all of the tiles and some of the roof in the stairwell had come down and smashed all over the floor, and I had no shoes with me so I was barefoot, so I didn’t want to go through the tower.”