Thai actress Nida ‘Tangmo’ Patcharaveerapong, 37, found dead in river

The popular actress reportedly fell off a boat in Bangkok on Thursday night

Nida ‘Tangmo’ Patcharaveerapong was found dead on Saturday (Instagram/Nida Patcharaveerapong)

The body of Thai actress Nida “Tangmo” Patcharaveerapong was recovered from the Chao Phraya river in capital Bangkok, two days after she fell from a boat.

After a 38-hour-long search, her body was found by her brother on Saturday about 300 metres away from Pibulsongkram pier in Nonthaburi province.

The 37-year-old actress reportedly fell into the river on Thursday night while on a boat trip with her manager and four other people.

Dayos Detjob, her teary-eyed brother, told local media he had “come to take her back home” and the rest of the investigation would be up to the police.

The owner of the speedboat Tanupat Lerttaweewit and the driver Paibul Trikanchananan were formally charged with causing wrongful death by negligence. Mr Lerttaweewit is also facing additional charges of using a boat with an expired license.

All five people present on the boat at the time of the incident reported to local police for questioning.

Following an interrogation, Mr Lerttaweewit said the actress had gone to the back of the boat to relieve herself. Her female friend was allegedly looking at her phone while Patcharaveerapong held on to her legs before falling into the water.

The preliminary autopsy report from the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Police General Hospital revealed sand in her lungs.

Forensic experts, however, dismissed claims she went to the end of the boat to relieve herself, noting that she was wearing a bodysuit at the time, which would have made it difficult, Thai PBS World reported.

Panida Sirayutthayothin, the mother of the actress, hinted her daughter’s death may not have been accidental. “Someone might not have been pleased Tangmo was there,” she said.

The model-turned-actress, with over 1.6 million followers on Instagram, was a prominent face in the Thai entertainment industry, having starred in movies like The Fallen Leaf and a series called Bangkok Love Stories: Innocence.

On Thursday, she shared photographs on Instagram of herself visiting a beach in Phuket.

“The sun (is) set to rise again,” she wrote in the caption to one of her photos.