On Monday night, rescue workers located the sports utility vehicle of a man from Suphan Buri who drove into the Chao Phraya by accident and drowned last Friday night, in Muang district of Nakhon Sawan.

The car was located at a depth of 6 metres, about 150 metres from the riverbank and about 300 metres from the point where it had plunged from the bypass.

Police and the rescue workers agreed that they would raise the sunken car from the river bed using empty 200-litre oil drums, then use a rope and backhoe to pull it to the bank.

Rescue workers had already found the body of the driver, a 27-year-old man stuck on a riverbank, about 15km downstream of the accident.

He reportedly used a GPS in his car to guide him as he tried to catch up with his girlfriend, who went ahead of him in another car after both had attended a birthday party in Muang district.  An error in the GPS system led him, however, to drive through an open road barrier on the bypass and into the river.

Yesterday (Monday), a Thai PBS reporter activated the GPS system in his car and followed the same route and instructions used by the victim and found that the navigation system took him straight into the river through the same gap in the barrier.

Traffic police have now installed traffic cones to block the gap in the barrier to prevent a similar tragedy.