New Year celebrants start returning to Bangkok

BANGKOK, January 3 (TNA) - More buses have been prepared, as New Year revellers have begun returning to Bangkok to resume their work next Monday after enjoying a five-day New Year holiday in the upcountry. In Hat Yai, renowned as a regional shopping paradise located in Thailand's southern Songkhla Province, the general atmosphere at its bus terminal began lively again on early Saturday morning, when holidaymakers packed the station, awaiting to board inter-provincial buses for Bangkok. Like other bus terminals in other Thai regions, tickets have been fully booked in advance; while bus drivers have to undertake an alcohol measurement before starting a long journey. Colonel Pongsak Chunak, Deputy Police Chief of Prachuap Khiri Khan Province in the Upper Thai South, has ordered his subordinates to adjust traffic operations with more police deployed along main roads and more checkpoints set up. Meanwhile, the Thai Ministry of Interior’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation reported that road accidents during the first four days of the seven-day road accident monitoring period for the New Year holidays stood at 2,104 throughout the country, in which 227 people died and 2,163 others were injured. On January 2 alone, a total of 367 road accidents took place nationwide, killing 37 people and injuring 381 others. According to the official report, drunk driving remained the major cause of the accidents during the ongoing New Year celebrations, followed by over speeding, while 82.41 per cent of vehicles involving in the accidents were motorcycles. (TNA)