200 Sites In Deep South Face Landslide Risks; Rail Services Resume

[george]

200 sites in deep South face landslide risks; Rail services resume

HAT YAI: -- Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Sunday warned southern province residents to be on alert as additional heavy rain in more than 200 areas in five provinces are now more at-risk to landslide.

Mr. Abhisit said in his weekly television and radio address that flooding in Surat Thani province had now receded, but southerners should remain alert as the weather department had warned that heavy rains would continue for at least one more day in the region.

Government disaster response workers are watching the continuing storm pattern.

Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation officials are monitoring the flood situation in the region round-the-clock and that sufficient assistance had been sent to the region, Mr Abhisit said.

In Songkhla province bordering Malaysia, more than 4,000 families were affected after their homes were flooded when sluice gates collapsed under heavy water pressure and which overflowed two major canals.

Disaster officials in Songkhla warned that more than 200 areas in five provinces-- Songkhla, Satun, Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat--could encounter landslides as heavy downpours continued to hit the region.

Passenger train services from Hat Yai district to Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, however, resumed Sunday after floodwater which covered one stretch of the rail line in a Songkhla village receded.

Although rain in Narathiwat had stopped for two days, but floodwater in some areas remained as high as 2.20 metres while fish breeders suffered heavy losses with hundred thousand farmed fish having perished.

A fish raiser in Narathiwat said fish died after officials released floodwater in the sluice gates to the sea and urged concerned government agencies to urgently provide assistance to the raisers because most had earlier become bankrupt and took out loans from outside the financial system.

Meanwhile, the bodies of eight persons who were killed in a landslide in a Narathiwat village November 6 had been recovered and sent to their families for religious ceremonies.

-- TNA 2009-11-08

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[Thunder26]

Due to the cold spell which was felt in Bangkok, the warm waters of Siam Bay triggered heavy rains over the South. For weather people: it is not a rocket science that with every cold spell in the center means heavy rains in the South. And with the North-East winds the most affected areas are likely to be from the Eastern coast of the Southern Thailand (Chumpon, Koh Samui, Surat Thani, Songkla, Had Yai, Nakhon Sri Thammarat, Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani, the latest one are hardly hit during December and January).

[ballzafire]

FYI, just took the train from Sungai Kolok (border) to Hat Yai and encountered no problems or delays.