Thailand's southerners warned of flash floods

BANGKOK, November 26 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said on Saturday that southerners, especially those living near waterways in nine provinces, should brace for possible flash floods, as heavy downpours are hitting the region. Speaking during her weekly address, "the Yingluck government meets people," broadcast live nationwide, the Thai premier warned that people in the nine southern provinces, including Surat Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phatthalung, Songkhla, Trang, Satun, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, should stay on alert for possible flash floods and water runoffs amid heavy downpours currently. Yingluck suggested that local fishermen also take extra precaution, as recent reports said this year rainfalls in Malaysia, Thailand's southern neighbour, could be some 40 per cent more than last year, noting that she has, therefore, assigned the Ministry of Interior and the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation to monitor updates on possible inundations in more areas in the Thai South, and Deputy Prime Minister Police General Kowit Wattana and Deputy Public Health Minister Torphong Chaiyasarn to visit people in existing flood-hit southern areas. Regarding the ongoing flooding situation in some parts of Bangkok and those in adjacent central provinces, the Pheu Thai premier said that experts of relevant international organisations would be invited to exchange ideas with Thailand's Strategic Committee on Water Management System and related panels tasked with conducting a study, over the past couple of months, on measures to effectively prevent floods in the country in the future; while governors of Bangkok and six adjacent provinces have also been instructed to jointly work out new practical water drainage ways, as runoffs have changed directions. (TNA)