Thai PM visits flood victims

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is visiting people in flood-hit areas in the Thai Northeast and has ordered all agencies concerned to fully prepare for coping with impacts from the new coming Wutip storm. SI SA KET, THAILAND, September 30 (TNA) - Thai Government Spokesman Teerat Ratanasevi told journalists that Premier Yingluck postponed her all scheduled activities for Setpember 30 to, instead, visit flood victims in the northeastern Si Sa Ket and Ubon Ratchathani Provinces, as she is concerned over the approaching Wutip storm, which was forecast to reach Thailand's central and northeastern regions on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. Teerat said the prime minister has instructed all the concerned agencies to work together, namely the military to prepare soldiers and equipment support, while the Royal Thai Police to ensure public safety based on its prepared measures and the Ministry of Public Health to watch out floodwater-borne diseases or illnesses. Wutip Typhoon was making its landfall on Hue in Vietnam and was forecast to then be downgraded before heading toward Thailand, where people in the northern, northeastern and eastern regions will be mostly affected. According to the Ministry of Interior's Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation’s updated report, 32 Thai provinces have been flooded, affecting people in 11,033 villages, especially those in Si Sa Ket and Ubon Ratchathani, and killing six victims so far. Meanwhile, inundations in eight districts of Phitsanulok Province in the Lower Thai North remain worrying with a main road being highly-submerged by floodwater, causing over one kilometres impassable for commuters; while in Ayutthaya Province, Bang Pa-in and Ban Wa (Hitech) Industrial Estates, two main industrial sites in the central province, are speeding up pumping out water from their drains to nearby canals and rivers to prepare for more anticipated downpours. (TNA)