Floods in Thai South widely affect people's assets

BANGKOK, January 12 (TNA) - The Bank of Thailand (BOT) reports that receding floods in the southern region have widely affected local households' belongings and farmlands. Sureerat Lakkanapanich, a senior director of BOT southern office, told journalists on Thursday that BOT has closely monitored the flooding situation in the Thai South and hardships to local people. Sureerat said BOT has, thus, found that the southern farm sector has mostly been affected by the latest floods in the region in the short term, especially local rubber and oil palm plantations. Sureerat acknowledged that local rubber farmers could not tap their rubber trees, as 75 per cent of rubber plantations in the Thai South had been hit by heavy downpours and massive floods. The senior BOT official estimated that the total produce of both para rubber and oil palms in the Thai South this month should drop, with the total produce of para rubber alone to fall by about 20 per cent year-on-year. The senior BOT official revealed that local financial institutes have been reopened to normal operations, after a total of 117 bank branches in the Thai South were flooded, forcing 11 of them to having been temporarily closed. Meanwhile, floods have receded at Bang Saphan Hospital in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province and the hospital was set to reopen to serve patients on January 13. In Trang Province, Kuntharin Rojanasurasi, chief of provincial disaster prevention and mitigation office, told reporters, in the meantime, that the flooding situation in her province has also been gradually improving and floods in remaining four districts were expected to recede over the next few days if there were no more downpours. According to the senior provincial authority, floods in Trang's six districts have affected about 46,000 locals so far, two of them have died, together with a total of about 120,000 acres of farmlands. (TNA)