Floods still ravage eight southern provinces
EIGHT southern provinces are still badly flooded as heavy rains continue to bring misery with 19 people having died so far and one person missing, Thai News Agency quoted Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation head Chatchai Phromlert as saying today (Jan.8).
The eight flooded provinces are Phatthalung, Narathiwat, Songkhla, Pattani, Trang, Surat Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Chumphon with floods covering a total of 85 districts, 523 sub-districts and 4,020 villages.
However flooding has improved in two other provinces, Yala and Ranong. A total of 91 districts, 569 sub-districts and 4,205 villages in the 10 provinces are affected with 330,318 households and 958,602 people being hit by this natural disaster.
Mr Chatchai said that it has been raining continuously since Jan. 1 and this led to forest runoffs suddenly inundating these provinces.
Meanwhile Chirawat Phakdee, president of the Songkhla’s organic golden banana farmers group said today that the second round of flooding of Ranot district since Jan. 5, with the first round being in December, has led to all 200 rai of banana plantations being destroyed.
The flooding occurred just as it was time to harvest the crop for export to Japan leading to farmers suffering almost 20 million baht of losses. However they would unite and rebuild their plantation and regrow these organic golden bananas again, he added.
The authorities were urged to find ways to resolve the flooding problem long term especially in residential and agricultural areas.
CAPTIONS:
Top: Damaged organic golden banana trees in Songkhla’s Ranot district. Photo: Thai News Agency
Inset: People wade through a flooded road amid steady rain. Photo: Thai News Agency
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