In a tragic incident in Chonburi Province, a 65-year-old man crawled into an earth burrow to rescue newly born puppies escaping floodwaters from heavy rain. Unfortunately, a landslide buried him alive. Rescue teams cleared the soil to recover his body and found two deceased puppies near his hands.
At 12:00 on 19 Sep 2026 GMT+7, Police Lieutenant Colonel Sirivit Wongsokwanakom, investigator at Ban Bueng Police Station, received a report from the Ban Bueng Moral Rescue Unit radio center about a death caused by earth burial inside an earth burrow. The incident occurred in Village 10, Nong Irun Subdistrict, Ban Bueng District, Chonburi Province. Upon notification, investigators, forensic doctors from Ban Bueng Hospital, and rescue volunteers promptly proceeded to the scene.
Upon arrival behind a house, they found the body of Mr. Warana Sae Lee, 65, deceased inside an earth burrow about 60 centimeters in diameter near a drainage canal. Grass covered the burrow, and a human foot protruded from the burrow's opening up to just below the knee.
Police ordered rescue volunteers to use digging equipment to recover the body for a preliminary examination. They dug approximately 30 centimeters deep and horizontally about 150 centimeters along the body. It took about 10 minutes to retrieve the deceased's body.
Both hands were stretched forward in a prone position, with two newborn dead puppies found at the fingertips. The autopsy showed no signs of violence. The deceased lived alone in the house, with few relatives living nearby.
Mr. Somsak Sae Lee, 75, the deceased's older brother, said that in the morning he went to his brother's house about 20 meters away but saw only his brother’s parked motorcycle and no sign of him. He searched the area and workplace without success, then returned home and discovered a foot protruding from a grass-covered burrow. Convinced it was his brother, he quickly alerted police and rescue teams.
The deceased’s 48-year-old niece said he loved dogs deeply—he would even go hungry himself to feed them. If a dog went missing, he would search for it. She last saw him at 5 p.m. the previous day and could not find him that morning, prompting her and her father to search around the house repeatedly until they found a foot sticking out of the burrow. Initially thinking it was a boot covered by dirt, she later realized it was a human foot and reported it to the police.
Mr. Phittaya Kongsri, 57, a local subdistrict administrative organization official, said the deceased was a dog lover. On the rainy night, he was likely worried about newborn puppies in the burrow. He crawled in to rescue them fearing floodwaters would rise but was trapped by a landslide and suffocated.
A survey of the house found eight newborn puppies lying on the ground under the house and two female dogs guarding them, their swollen udders indicating recent births. The site where the deceased was found was a sandy earth burrow near a drainage canal, damp from water seepage, with signs of dogs digging burrows to hide throughout the area.
Relatives expressed no objection to the cause of death. Authorities sent the body via rescue unit to Ban Bueng Hospital for a definitive cause of death examination before returning the body to family for religious rites.