A tourist drowned in a canal during the Songkran water fight festival celebrations in Thailand on Sunday night.

The holidaymaker was with friends in Bangkok when he dropped his water gun into the Saen Saep canal near the Pratunam Pier in Bangkok.

Onlookers said he slipped into the notoriously polluted waterway while trying to retrieve the plastic pistol.

Nobody jumped in to help him.

Divers retrieved the man's body in the early hours of Monday morning. He had no identification on him.

Police said that they are interviewing witnesses to determine how he fell into the water.

Lieutenant General Wittayakarn Suvannaruengsri said: 'There were a lot of people in the area when the foreign man died. We do not think it is suspicious.

'Officers interviewed witnesses and they said he was trying to fetch his water gun from the water. They don't know if he jumped into the canal or fell in while he was trying to reach the item.

'The body has been sent for a post mortem examination and we are still trying to find his identity.'

The Buddhist festival Songkran, which takes place every year from April 13 to April 15, marks the new calendar year in the ancient religion. It originated in India in the 6th century before being taken up by the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire - the predecessor to modern-day Cambodia.

Followers splash each other with water to wash away the sins and bad luck of the past year. Traditionally, young relatives would pour water over the hands and feet of elders as a mark of respect.

However, the once-sedate festival has been commercialised by the avaricious Thai tourism industry and spawned into infantile water fight parties across the country, with hundreds of thousands of tourists joining in the chaos to cool off as temperatures reach 40 degrees Celsius in the hottest month of the year.

Ministers have urged locals not to drink and drive while officials in Bangkok have banned alcohol at its official festival venues due to the rise in road accidents during the period.

There are also criticisms that it wastes water at a time when prolonged droughts are causing peril across the world.