An east Asian man who was violently assaulted and robbed by two teenagers shouting “coronavirus” at him has warned that the spread of the disease has created “a climate of racism” in the UK. The attack on Pawat Silawattakun, a 24-year-old tax consultant, is thought to be the first violent hate crime linked to the virus reported to British authorities.

Silawattakun says he was travelling home in the late afternoon to west London when he was attacked on his local high street in full view of dozens of passersby. The Thai man, who works in the City, was left stunned and bleeding with a broken nose as one assailant stole his headphones and the other filmed the attack on his phone.

“I’d just got off the bus at Fulham when I heard a faint sound directed at me from my left across the street,” he told the Observer. “I had these noise-cancelling headphones on and took them off as these guys just shouted ‘Coronavirus! Coronavirus! Ha, ha!’ in my face while filming me. I didn’t get a chance to say anything – ‘Please stop’, or ‘Why are you doing this?’ – when one of them snatched the headphones from my neck.”

Neither of the teenagers initially ran away but instead laughed at Silawattakun, he said. “It didn’t feel like a robbery at that point, it felt like bullying, a bit of messing around.”

Things quickly escalated when he gave chase. “After about 50 metres, they ran across the road and I ran after [one of them] shouting: ‘Why are you doing this?’ When I reached the traffic island he turned round and punched me to the ground. There was blood everywhere.”

Silawattakun says he shouted out to bystanders but “no one seemed to care or pay attention initially”. Eventually he was helped by two people and got an Uber to hospital. His attackers didn’t bother leaving the scene, so Silawattakun took pictures of them to pass to the police.

“It’s made me very wary, it’s a terrible feeling knowing that they’re still out there. It isn’t just a robbery, there’s also knowing that I’ve been targeted because of my ethnicity, and that they were filming me to humiliate me, as if east Asians are all submissive and easy targets.”

A global poll by Ipsos Mori on Friday found that 14% of respondents said they would avoid contact with people of Chinese origin or appearance.

Silawattakun, who moved to England to attend boarding school in Surrey before reading chemical engineering at Cambridge, was despairing. “Statistically, you’re more likely to find an Asian doctor that will cure you than to find an Asian guy who will infect you with coronavirus, but this xenophobia is being taken out on all east Asians. When there was an Ebola outbreak a few years ago, did you get the public shouting ‘Ebola!’ at every black person on the street?”

After posting about his attack on Facebook, Silawattakun said he received dozens of messages from people sharing their own experiences of hostile and racist behaviour in recent weeks.

Scotland Yard said: “Police are investigating an aggravated robbery committed in Fulham. The victim, a 24-year-old man, reported being racially abused by an unknown male suspect in Fulham Road, SW6. A second male suspect approached the victim from behind and stole his headphones and then assaulted him. The victim sustained a broken nose and received hospital treatment.”

Silawattakun said his parents had flown from Thailand to support him. He is due to have an operation on his nose and has taken leave from work. “It doesn’t matter how much I’ve accomplished or how hard I’ve worked,” he said. “None of that shields me or anyone else. I’m still just a target because I’m east Asian.”