I have a question ...
1/ Does KT represent a higher chance of death than Thailand in general? I don't see any numbers that suggest this but my analysis is very limited (post 21). To me, even with my limited data, 16 deaths over 6-7 years (of foreigners) versus the 238 Australian deaths in Thailand last year, does not seem disproportionate and I would have expected to have found a high number of Australian deaths in KT. As I write this I wish to keep in mind and say that these statistics are lost lives; RIP.
... and as I type this article popped up:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...on-foreign-tourists-in-2019?srnd=premium-asia
FYI - there's and Accidents and Incidents on SB. For the diving related deaths that might be an appropriate place to discuss those. That forum has special rules. Information from people that witnessed the incident is obviously very useful to learn from, however, I read the statement of the Dive Instructor of Rocio Gomez but the translation is so unclear in critical parts that it's probably better to post / link the original in Spanish.
The Danish language page for Koh Tao has some statistics using 2016 figures, on that year 228 tourists out of 36 million visitors died while visiting Thailand, this is 0.64 deaths per 100.000 tourists. From the same page, Koh Tao receives 500.000 tourist so based on that average 3 deaths a year would be expected.
Going by your numbers 16 deaths over 6-7 years is 2.6-2.3 a year, which is less than the average. However, since 41% of tourists deaths are related to water activities it would be expected than an island would have a proportionally larger number than, for example, landlocked Chiang Mai province which has the largest number of tourists deaths in Thailand.
I'd say three or four deaths of tourists per year sounds similar to what gets in the news. The thing is all get in the news because there are people hovering over the island like vultures waiting for the next "victim" of "Death Island" and not waiting until the body reaches room temperature to declare the death mysterious, unexplained and connected in some way to all the previous deaths that were declared mysterious and unexplained.
Now compare and contrast those statistics with what is being peddled by the Samui Times to support the "Death Island" narrative.
On the article written by Ian Yarwood titled "The Koh Tao murders – two dead British tourists, two men facing execution and a story that will never sleep " he states:
"Koh Tao has a staggering murder rate of approximately 1,000 per million per annum." N.B. that is 100 per 100.000 tourists a year.
How does Yarwood come to that fact?
"The population of tiny Koh Tao is approximately 2,000 and about 2 tourists are murdered per annum."
He arrives a that that conclusion by declaring two
tourists are murdered on the island every year, and uses a wrong figure of 2000
residents on the island (it's more like 8000) to do the math.
So, according to Yarwood if you divide the number of
residents by a made up number of
tourists murdered you reach the statistics that the death rate for
tourists in Koh Tao is 100 times higher than Australia.
Using the actual number of tourists that go there per year, 500.000, according to Yarwood and the Samui Times "statistics" 500 tourists are murdered, not just die, but are murdered, every year in Koh Tao.
That is the kind of made up nonsense they push to sell the "Death Island" stories.
I will point out that on that article Yarwood again states
"Jean-francois Louet, a French dive instructor from Koh Tao was found murdered on the mainland in March 2016." As I pointed out previously when that man's mother asked to show respect for her son and friends complained to the Samui Times that he had died of natural causes and the Samui Times should correct their story, what they got for an answer was one of members of the Samui Times called them "gullible idiots" and accused them of working for the mafia (accusing people who call them out for their antics of working for the mafia is their standard response, you know like reputable news services do)
He also makes this claim:
"a 23 year-old Russian girl, Valentina Novozhenova disappeared on 15 February 2017 and the Thai authorities did not start any search or investigation for over two weeks and only after her disappearance was reported by the Samui Times" The article where they reported that disappearance has the title "23 Year Old Russian Girl Missing from Koh Tao", it includes a screen capture of a Facebook conversation where people are discussing the disappearance, that the police have been notified and a search is underway, quote from the article
"Reports on a Facebook appeal say that the local police found her belongings in her room, they have now taken her phone and passport."
So from first reporting that people and authorities in Koh Tao were actively searching for the missing girl the Samui Times has repeatedly (not just in this article) claimed that nobody was looking for her until they broke the story... you know, the story about people looking for her. Do you see what kind of "news" we are dealing with here?
I could go on and on and on over the same type of misleading, false and malicious content they have published to push the "Death Island" narrative, in the end the editor got charged with breaking the Computer Crimes Law in Thailand for publishing fake news, and in an interview she had the gall to say about it
"I really don't know why [they decided to come after me],"