At least 34 people, including 22 kids (as young as 2-year-olds), were killed Thursday in a mass shooting at a children’s day-care centre in a northeastern province of Thailand, reported news agency Reuters citing a police official.

The official confirmed that the gunman identified as Panya Khamrab, was an ex-police lieutenant colonel who killed his wife and child and himself during the incident. He was reportedly discharged from the police force last year.

Some victims aged as young as two were attacked as they slept. A dozen people who were injured have been taken to Nong Bua Lamphu district hospital.

"The shooter came in around lunchtime and shot four or five officials at the childcare centre first," a local official Jidapa Boonsom, who was working nearby, told Reuters news agency. One of them was a teacher who was eight months pregnant,

"At first people thought it was fireworks," she said, adding the gunman then forced entry to a locked room where children were sleeping.

Videos posted on social media showed sheets covering what appeared to be the bodies of children lying in pools of blood at the centre in the town of Uthai Sawan in the northeastern province of Nong Bua Lamphu, said the report.