Flooding kills one more person in Thai South

BANGKOK, November 30 (TNA) - Flooding in southern Thailand has been relieving, but affected people have remained in troubles in some areas and another dead flood victim has been found. In the southernmost Narathiwat Province, downpours have been decreasing, resulting in declining overflows from the three main local Su-ngai Kolok, Bang Nara and Sai Buri Rivers to about 50-89 centimetres. If there were no more downpours, the situation in Narathiwat should return to normal within a few days. However, the body of a 21-year-old man who had gone missing while swimming with friends in the Sungai Kolok River on November 26 has already been discovered, raising the flood-related death toll in Narathiwat to three so far. In Songkhla Province, floods have also been receding and have remained only in four districts near the Songkhla Lake, including the highly-submerged Sating Phra District and the Saba Yoi District, where 99 local households have remained in temporary shelters for fears of more flooding early next month caused by renewed monsoon-borne downpours. In the Thai North, Wirat Tangpradit, head of the lower northern cluster of the Thai Chamber of Commerce's regional offices, acknowledged that critical flooding in Nakhon Sawan Province from August-November 2011 has damaged local properties worth some 11 billion baht, as about 900,000 rai or 1,440 square kilometres of farmlands, most of them are paddy fields, have been destroyed, coupled with local commercial damages estimated at some three billion baht, as 6,000 local shops and business firms in downtown Nakhon Sawan have been affected by the deep floodwater over the past couple of months. Wirat said that, apart from assistance from the government, the Thai Chamber of Commerce, Nakhon Sawan's office, has also offered more support to local flood-affected businesses, including additional financial assistance and reductions in business fees and public utilities costs. (TNA)