Thai PM orders three main parties to cope with southern floods

BANGKOK, January 4 (TNA) - Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has ordered three main parties, including the Interior Ministry, the government's Flood Relief Operation Centre (FROC) and the military to closely work together to assist flood victims in the Thai South. Yingluck told reporters after a weekly Cabinet meeting at the Thai Parliament building today that she has instructed the Ministry of Interior to urgently spend emergency funds in southern flood-hit provinces for relief operations, the FROC to take care of local flood victims and the military to support local relief operations. Yingluck said that she has also ordered authorities concerned to take care and ensure of effective disaster warning systems to enable people in affected areas to timely cope with flooding for the sake of their safety. The Pheu Thai premier insisted that she cares for and wishes to visit flood victims in the Thai South and she will find an opportunity, after ongoing parliamentary sessions for state budget deliberations, to visit the flood-stricken southerners, promising, however, to immediately visit the southern flood victims in case of any emergency. The prime minister acknowledged that her government plans to set up and include a permanent centre on long-term national flood resolutions in a new national water management master plan. (TNA)