Thai PM:Flood warning systems have been upgraded

BANGKOK, July 5 (TNA) - Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra says that Thailand's flood warning systems have been developed and agencies concerned have been ordered to verify and unify their updated information related to flooding before issuing warnings to the public. Yingluck told journalists that she made the instruction at a meeting on her government’s review and discussion on progress of preventing and resolving repeated flooding, held at Bangkok's Government House earlier in the day, in the wake of the country's flooding crisis late last year, acknowledging that several government agencies are now responsible for forecasting and warning of inundations and warning systems. Eventually, the prime minister said, the verified and unified flood-related information will be accessible to the public on official websites and people are also allowed to phone in and provide their information, insisting that she will personally follow-up the progress of national flood prevention and warning systems every week. According to the Thai premier, disaster warning mechanisms of the Ministry of Interior have been linked with those in provincial, district and community levels, through all available channels, to timely and effectively alert people in affected areas. On soil erosion on the banks of Chao Phraya River in Mueang district of Ang Thong province, affecting 14 houses, Yingluck said she has ordered officials at the Mineral Resources Department to probe the incident as well as declaring the area disaster zone. The Interior Ministry is assigned in evacuating people in the affected area, she added. (TNA)