A tourist has been questioned by police over the death of his Thai girlfriend who plunged from their sixth-floor hotel room balcony.

Paul James Silver, 78, from New Zealand, was drinking with Bell Nichanan, 44, before shocked locals heard her crash to the ground at 1 am this morning January 26.

Onlookers said that Bell hit a parked motorcycle then the floor tiles outside the Center Condotel in Pattaya, Thailand.

Several of her bones were broken and blood was pouring from her head. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Footage shows how Paul raced downstairs and was crying next to his lover's corpse as police covered it with a white sheet.

Devastated friend Nok, 48, said that she had been drinking with the couple before they returned to their room shortly before the incident.

She said: 'We said goodbye then after about five minutes, I heard the sound of something hitting the ground and saw Nichanan's corpse. I called the police and an ambulance.

'My friend had been seeing Paul for four or five months. I thought they loved each other and I never saw any conflict between them.

'They had paid a deposit for a car, planned to buy a condominium, and wanted to get married in the future.'

Police Lieutenant Colonel Pitak Nernsang from the Pattaya Police Station said officers received an emergency call at around 1am local time.

The police and paramedics rushed to the scene and found the dead woman's body. She was from Nakhon Ratchasima province in the northeast of the country.

The policeman said: 'The woman plunged from room 3/208 on the sixth floor and hit a motorcycle and the ground.

Her boyfriend has been invited to the station for questioning. We have not yet concluded what the cause was, whether it was an accident, suicide or something else.'

An ambulance took Nichanan's body to the Institute of Forensic Medicine for a post-mortem examination.