The attack started at about 5pm, in Khiri Rat Nikhom district in Surat Thani province – roughly 600km south of the capital Bangkok.

“Four people died,” local head of police Kriangkrai Kraikaew told AFP, declining to give further details.

The shooting happened near the home of a former village head, local media reported.

Thailand has high rates of gun ownership and there has been a steady trickle of violent incidents in the past 12 months, including one of the deadliest attacks in recent history.

The kingdom was stunned in October after a former police sergeant murdered 36 people, 24 of them children, in the northeastern Nong Bua Lam Phu province.

And last month, three people were killed and another three wounded in a Phetchaburi province shooting, which ended only after a 15-hour stand-off.