South-East Asia (Page 1,352)

Flood-hit areas must batten down hatches

Heavy rain has been forecast from tomorrow until next Wednesday during which more floods are expected in several parts of the country.

Following days of torrential rain which have already resulted in flooding in the North and Northeast and the risk of more floods in the Central Plains, the Office of National Water Resources (ONWR) warned these areas yesterday to prepare for more.

A new period of heavy rain, forecast to begin tomorrow and last until Saturday, will bring more run-off which is likely to exacerbate the current situation, it said.

The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation also cautioned 10 more provinces including Bangkok to brace for floods caused by any overflow from Chao Phraya River.

The provinces included in this warning are Uthai Thani, Chai Nat, Sing Buri, Ang Thong, Suphan Buri, Ayutthaya, Lop Buri, Pathum Thani, Nonthaburi and Samut Prakan.

Communities in low-lying areas near the river are at greater risk of encountering flooding and the Chao Phraya Dam in Chai Nat will need to release more water to prevent overflowing, said the department.

The discharge rate from the dam has already been raised from 1,000 cubic metres a second to 1,400 cu/mecs, said the department, and the situation is likely to worsen when Tropical Storm Koinu hits Vietnam next Monday, said the ONWR.

The 14th storm in the Pacific this season formed early on Saturday morning and is moving towards Taiwan and Hong Kong, according to a weather update issued yesterday by the Meteorological Department.

As of yesterday, close to 18,800 households in 28 provinces have been affected by floods, said Suttipong Juljarern, permanent-secretary for the interior.

In Sukhothai, a floodwall in Moo 1 village in tambon Pak Khwae of Muang district broke triggering a major flood in some nearby communities where people and livestock were evacuated.

The water levels in the Yom River measured right in front of the province’s city hall rose by 37 centimetres yesterday morning due to excess water flowing in from Mae Mok reservoir.

Deputy Prime Minister Somsak Thepsutin yesterday visited Sukhothai to inspect the flood situation in the province. The rising volume of the run-off coming into Yom River was worrying, said Mr Somsak.

The minister also visited Phrae to inspect the salvage effort on an express train derailed in a flooded area on Saturday morning, in which some passengers sustained slight injuries.

Mr Somsak also discussed long-term measures with local authorities and improving the safety system of the country’s major dams as part of a bid to better cope with flooding.

State Railway of Thailand (SRT) staff are working against time to remove the locomotive and three carriages of a special express train which derailed on the northern route in Long district, Phrae province, early on Saturday. The work is expected to be completed on Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday morning, Pichet Khunathamrat, director of the Department of Rail Transport, accompanied Deputy Transport Minister Surapong Piyachote in a trip to Long district for an inspection of the derailment site.

The incident occurred at 5.48am on Saturday between Kaeng Luang and Ban Pin railway stations in Long district while Special Express Train No 13 from Bangkok was heading for Chiang Mai. The derailment was caused by damage to the rail track made by forest runoff.

The train’s locomotive, a baggage car and two sleeping cars derailed.

No train staff and passengers were hurt. However, the rail route was closed for the derailed locomotive and carriages to be removed from the track and for the rail track to be repaired.

Mr Pichet said one of the sleeping cars was lifted from the track with a crane and towed to nearby Kaeng Luang railway station at about 7pm on Saturday.

He expected the removal of the locomotive, the baggage car and the other sleeping car would be completed and the repair of the rail track finished on Sunday afternoon. The rail route should be reopened by 6pm, he said.

Heavy rains will be expanding nationwide and the levels of waterways will be rising throughout the first week of this month, government agencies warned on Sunday.

The Meteorological Department said that heavy rains would cover parts of the North, the Northeast and the South on Sunday and Monday.

From Tuesday to Saturday heavy downpours would be in the lower Northeast, the lower Central Plain, the East and the South.

The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation warned people living near waterways in 11 provinces in the Chao Phraya river basin that the levels of those waterways could rise from Monday onwards.

The warning was issued for residents of Ang Thong, Ayutthaya, Bangkok, Chai Nat, Lop Buri, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Samut Prakan, Sing Buri, Suphan Buri and Uthai Thani.

Water levels might go up by 1.00-1.50 metres in low-lying parts of Ang Thong and Ayutthaya.

The department said that deluges of water were flowing from the North and it would rain heavily in the Northeast, the Central Plain and the South this week.

On Sunday the Yom River overflowed through ruptured embankments into Muang district of the northern province of Sukhothai, affecting about 1,300 households and 2,400 rai of farmland.

Deputy Prime Minister Somsak Thepsutin said in Sukhothai that the province would receive torrents from Phrae province and flooded areas in Sukhothai might expand.

Meanwhile, flood levels in Lom Sak district of Phetchabun province, also in the North, were subsiding on Sunday. Phetchabun governor Krit Kongmuang said local reservoirs were 80-90% full.

The Highways Department reported that four highways were impassable in the northern provinces of Lampang, Lamphun and Sukhothai due to floods and mudslides on Sunday.

They were Highway 1102 in Mae Phrik district of Lampang; Highway 1010 in Ban Hong district and Highway 1184 in Thung Hua Chang district of Lamphun; and Highway 1056 in Sri Samrong district of Sukhothai.

The Digital Government Development Agency (DGA) has issued an update on the progress of Thailand’s digital government transformation, laying out its aim of digitising services via the mobile app “Tang Rat”.

Supot Tiarawut, director of DGA, said the DGA was making progress in driving a digital government, whether providing services at the Government to Citizens (G2C) level, Government to Business (G2B) or Government to Government (G2G).

For the G2C level, DGA has connected more than 112 government services to serve citizens through the application “Tang Rat”, a mobile app that combines services from all state agencies available for people on digital platforms, he said.

Currently, there are more than 112 services with cumulative usage of over 7.5 million logins and 607,041 downloads, said Mr Supot.

By 2024, the DGA aims to include more services such as personal land tax examination checks, personal insurance information and interest payment services (pawning).

Mr Supot said the DGA has also launched a government open data centre on data.go.th, where public data is available for citizens and software developers. There are currently 10,226 open data collections and 3,871,796 people have used the service.

For the G2B level, the DGA has designed bizportal.go.th. to provide business-related services for small and medium-sized enterprises. Entrepreneurs can apply for licences from the government through the website. Over 124 services are available online and about 15,881 users have registered for them.

For the G2G level, the DGA focuses on supporting data linkages among state agencies such as the Government Data Exchange (GDX) on communication channels which guarantee data safety. Currently, 13 agencies and 74 data services have been linked while collective data has been linked 133.44 million times.

In addition, the DGA is focused on providing digital knowledge to officials. It has established the Thailand Digital Government Academy (TDGA) to help improve digital skills among civil servants and government officials.

The academy has provided training to more than 1.9 million officials. In 2024, the training will include officials at the provincial level. Digital courses will be designed for the local area and will develop digital skills onsite.

“The success of the DGA’s projects has shown the agency can lead the scheme “Smart Nation Smart Life”, allowing agencies to manage and present public services through digital channels,’’ Mr Supot, the DGA director, said.

Thailand’s ranking in digital government development as surveyed by the United Nations continues to increase as a result of such efforts, he added.

The Digital Government Development Agency (DGA) has issued an update on the progress of Thailand’s digital government transformation, laying out its aim of digitising services via the mobile app “Tang Rat”.

Supot Tiarawut, director of DGA, said the DGA was making progress in driving a digital government, whether providing services at the Government to Citizens (G2C) level, Government to Business (G2B) or Government to Government (G2G).

For the G2C level, DGA has connected more than 112 government services to serve citizens through the application “Tang Rat”, a mobile app that combines services from all state agencies available for people on digital platforms, he said.

Currently, there are more than 112 services with cumulative usage of over 7.5 million logins and 607,041 downloads, said Mr Supot.

By 2024, the DGA aims to include more services such as personal land tax examination checks, personal insurance information and interest payment services (pawning).

Mr Supot said the DGA has also launched a government open data centre on data.go.th, where public data is available for citizens and software developers. There are currently 10,226 open data collections and 3,871,796 people have used the service.

For the G2B level, the DGA has designed bizportal.go.th. to provide business-related services for small and medium-sized enterprises. Entrepreneurs can apply for licences from the government through the website. Over 124 services are available online and about 15,881 users have registered for them.

For the G2G level, the DGA focuses on supporting data linkages among state agencies such as the Government Data Exchange (GDX) on communication channels which guarantee data safety. Currently, 13 agencies and 74 data services have been linked while collective data has been linked 133.44 million times.

In addition, the DGA is focused on providing digital knowledge to officials. It has established the Thailand Digital Government Academy (TDGA) to help improve digital skills among civil servants and government officials.

The academy has provided training to more than 1.9 million officials. In 2024, the training will include officials at the provincial level. Digital courses will be designed for the local area and will develop digital skills onsite.

“The success of the DGA’s projects has shown the agency can lead the scheme “Smart Nation Smart Life”, allowing agencies to manage and present public services through digital channels,’’ Mr Supot, the DGA director, said.

Thailand’s ranking in digital government development as surveyed by the United Nations continues to increase as a result of such efforts, he added.

Staff at the Thale Ban National Park in the southern province of Satun have discovered a new kind of pit viper, the smallest yet found in the subfamily of venomous snakes.

Saengsuree Songthong, chief of the national park, said he, his assistant Nakhen Kaweethanatham and research official Bunyarit Dechochai accidentally spotted the newly-discovered species of pit vipers while they were resting under a limestone shelter recently.

They took pictures and asked a researcher to identify the snakes. The research later found that the team made a new discovery.

Mr Saengsuree said that the newly-discovered species was scientifically named “Trimeresurus ciliaris” and called “limestone eyelash pit viper”. It looks similar to Trimeresurus venustus or “beautiful pit viper”.

The limestone eyelash pit viper is smaller than the beautiful pit viper, the park chief said. Its eyelashes and nose are bigger and patterns on its lateral scales are clearer.

Don Muang will be the first district in Bangkok to obtain a new hospital under the “50 districts, 50 hospitals” policy, Public Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew said.

Dr Cholnan said this is one of the 13 programmes he announced on assuming the position.

He said the project would begin by selecting a location with an existing building in the district which would be further developed into a 120-bed hospital for primary care with rooms for emergency operations and medical services.

“What we will do is to improve the building to make it ready for medical services in the first 100 days. This can be done in other districts, if they are ready,” Dr Cholnan said.

When asked about how medical staff would be sourced to work at the new facility in Don Muang, Dr Cholnan said the personnel would initially come from within the Public Health Ministry.

Dr Cholnan said he would like to see the hospitals under this policy to operate as a public organisation, similarly to the Ban Phaeo Hospital in Samut Sakhon’s Ban Phaeo district.

He said he had set up a committee to implement the 13 policies he had announced. Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, the permanent secetary for public health, was in the process of setting up 13 sub-committees to oversee each of the 13 policies.

Dr Opas said one of the sub-committees would specifically handle the 50 districts, 50 hospitals policy.

RAYONG: The Eastern Economic Corridor Office of Thailand (EECO) has approved a feeder electric train linking with a high-speed rail link between the capital’s airports and U-Tapao airport in the high-speed rail project’s second hearing.

The public hearing panel was recently organised by EECO in Ban Chang district and joined by local administration representatives with a main focus on a development plan for feeder transport for the high-speed railway.

According to Karn Chaloemwongphan, EECO’s traffic and transport model expert, two main railway systems were proposed on the hearing panel: a road-tyre-based system and a fixed guideway-based system.

The panel had agreed on the second method, with two types of train and railway systems to consider. According to Mr Karn, they were a conventional rail-based system, such as Light Rail Transit (LRT), trams, or tram-trains, and a contemporary transit system, such as monorails, automated guideway transits (AGT), and urban maglevs.

Three rail routes for the feeder train were also proposed. They were the northern railway from the EEC-Sri Racha high-speed station in Chon Buri; the western railway from the EEC-Pattaya high-speed station, and the southern railway from the EEC-U-Tapao high-speed station.

Results pointed to the southern railway as the most suitable area due to engineering, economic, and environmental factors. This area will be a pilot for further study as well as the fundamental design of the project, said Mr Karn.

Mr Karn said the feeder train was expected to be a flyover of at least 20 kilometres in length, covering areas between Bang Lamung and Sattahip districts in Chon Buri and Ban Chang district in Rayong.

It will start at the EEC and become a flyover at Highway No.331 (located near Huai Yai police station). The flyover will go along Highway No.7 (Khao Chi Chan and Khao Chi Oan) and finish at Highway No.3, or Sukhumvit Road.

After the hearing, EECO and the project’s consultant will gather comments to improve the feeder train construction, details of which will be proposed at a later hearing.

The 1.92-kilometre high-speed rail link will handle the expected surge in traffic volume caused by U-Tapao Airport’s importance to the EEC. It will be promoted as another international airport for commercial flights in 2025 when the rail link finally opens.

A majority of people want the state to provide subsidies for childcare and free education as an incentive for Thai people to have one or more children now that the country has become an aged society with a low birthrate, according to a survey by the National Institute of Development Administration, or Nida Poll.

The poll was conducted on Sept 26-28 by telephone interviews with 1,310 people aged 18-40 of various levels of education, occupations and incomes throughout the country.

Asked about their marital status and number of children, the answers varied as follows:

• 29.39% unmarried, not in a relationship
• 26.57% officially married, with one or more children
• 20.92% unmarried, in a relationship
• 10.99% unofficially married, with one or more children
• 4.58% officially married, no children
• 2.52% single parents
• 1.98% unofficially married, no children
• 1.98% living with a partner, with one or more children
• 1.07% living with a partner, no children

For the 759 respondents without children, when asked whether they want to have one or more, 53.89% said they do; 44.00% do not; and 2.11% did not know or were not interested.

For the 334 respondents who do not want to have a child, when asked why, with each allowed to choose more than one answer, the answers were as follows:

• 38.23% did not want to shoulder the expenses for raising children
• 38.23% were not sure how the children would survive in the present social condition
• 37.72% did not want to be burdened with childcare
• 33.23% wanted to lead a free lifestyle
• 17.66% were afraid they would not be able to take good care of the children
• 13.77% attached more importance to work
• 5.39% cited health problems
• 2.10% were uncertain about their genetic ability to produce good children
• 0.90% were afraid about the consequences of bad karma from how they had treated their parents

Asked whether they were concerned there would be fewer new-born children in the future, 50.53% said not at all; 23.13% were not particularly worried; 17.79% were fairly concerned; and 8.55% were very concerned.

Asked what measures they thought should be taken by the state as an incentive for Thai people to have children, with each respondent allowed to choose more than one answer, the answers were:

• 65.19% free education
• 63.66% subsidies for childcare until the age of 15
• 30.00% lower income tax on people with children
• 29.47% more leave days for parents to raise their children
• 21.91% a financial reward for having a child
• 19.92% a subsidy for single parents
• 17.18% develop and provide financial support for childcare centres
• 9.85% free services at centres helping people with reproduction
• 7.48% higher taxes on people without children
• 5.50% wider opening of channels for surrogacy
• 4.89% setting up of match-making centres for Thai people