Thai PM continues flood prevention tour

TAK, THAILAND, June 14 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has continued with her flood prevention tour in provinces standing in floodways, arriving in upstream areas Thursday morning, from downstream and midstream zones, amid the relieving flooding situation in several areas in the Thai North and South. In Tak province, Yingluck met local authorities and had a video conference with concerned ministers and governors of provinces standing in floodways, during which she ordered the concerned ministries to help flood victims and implement short and long-term flood prevention projects, including reforestation and the construction of dams and reservoirs in upstream locations. The prime minister urged all the parties concerned to help solve flood problems which caused great damages to the country last year and have affected local economic and agricultural sectors, as well as hundreds of thousands of households. The Thai premier also instructed the fastest implementation of flood prevention projects in the upstream areas, which, she considered, are being long delayed although the government has already approved their budgets. Meanwhile, inundations over past week in several southern and northern Thai areas have been receding. In the southern Trang province, for instance, the flooding situation is relieving in six districts except in 20 villages near the Trang River in Muang district due to high tide of the sea. The Trang River has overflowed for five days and flood levels by the river have ranged from 50 centimeters to nearly two meters, forcing local people to commute by boat and to face shortages of drinking water and clean water. In the lower northern Sukhothai province, floods are also receding, as the Yom River has been subsiding and approaching its normal level. The repairs of damaged river banks in the Yang Sai and Pak Phra localities have also been completed and thus stop waters from pouring into local communities. In the northeastern Sakon Nakhon province, the local disaster prevention and mitigation office handed financial assistance to 27 families whose houses were damaged by summer storms in April-May. (TNA)