Southern train service disrupted following heavy downpours

HAT YAI: -- The heavy downpours Sunday damaged a portion of railway in Songkhla's Hat Yai district automatically stalling train services to three southernmost provinces.

More than 500 train passengers, who bought tickets to the deep South, had to drop off at the Hat Yai train station and received partial refund.

In the face of violent wave, Nakhon Songkhla Municipality was forming sandbags as a temporary wall against the wave to protect the Samila Beach.

"We are also handing out sandbags to people whose houses are near the sea," the municipality's mayor Utis Chuchuay said.

Four fishing boats sink off Narathiwat

A monsoon hovering over the Gulf of Thailand Sunday sank four fishing trawlers off Narathiwat's shores, leaving at least three fishermen missing.

The furious wave in the sea was between four and five metres high.

A small fishing trawler sank, throwing all four people on board into the sea. Fortunately, all of them were later swept to shore safely.

The fate was much grimmer for another fishing trawler, when it sank amid rough weather at round 3.30 pm.

Despite urgent help from marine police and other fishing trawlers, only six of nine people on this trawler were rescued. Three others went missing.

Pol Major Sathorn Suksong, an inspector at a marine police unit, dispatched the patrol boat to help the victims upon receiving a report of the sinking boat.

The patrol boat later helped 20 other fishermen, all of them thrown out into the sea after two other fishing trawlers sank.

As of press time, more than 30 other fishing trawlers were floating amid the rough sea as they could not brave the furious waves to bay.

-- The Nation 2007-01-07

Rough seas, heavy downpours predicted for South

A monsoon hovering over the Gulf of Thailand is sending heavy downpours to six southern provinces on the eastern coastline and is causing rough sea conditions, according to a weather bureau.

Kamonsri Seneetantikul, who heads a southern weather bureau, Sunday warned small trawlers against going out to the sea between Sunday and Tuesday. She said the wave would be a few metres high amid the rough weather conditions.

Her bureau also forecast cloudbursts in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phatthalung, Songkhla, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat.

-- The Nation 2007-01-07