Relief kits handed out to South flood victims

The 43rd Border Patrol Police of the Ram Kham Haeng Camp officers delivered the kits to 200 families in heavily-flooded Ban Phak Kood Moo 4 in Tambon Ban Mai.
Songkhla and other southern provinces have been hit by heavy rains and floods since the beginning of the month.
In Trang’s Muang district, flood barriers along the Trang River burst on Wednesday night at one 10-metre section in Tambon Nong Trud and another 20-metre section in Tambon Bang Rak. 
The failures sent torrents of water into nearby homes and forced residents to move to higher ground. 
Torrents also knocked over power poles causing blackouts, forcing provincial electricity authority workers to cut power as a precaution as floods threatened more power poles.
Floodwaters in Nong Trud, Bang Rak, Na Ta Luang and Na Toh Ming in Muang district, as well as areas in downstream Kantang district, were deep and draining slowly due to the seasonal seawater inflows. 
Officials installed pumps borrowed from Phuket officials at the 20-rai (3.2-hectare) Tha Chin Temple, which was surrounded by floodwaters threatening hundreds of monks and student novices. Officials said they hoped the two-metre-deep flood could be drained in less than 24 hours if there was no more rain or runoff.
Muang’s Tambon Thab Tiang resident Suranan Tongkhien, 26, said his family of four adults and two children had suffered from flooding as they had to close a vending stall in front of their house and could not work outside. 
In Surat Thani, the provincial disaster prevention and mitigation office announced yesterday that the situation was improving after the rain stopped, although several coastal homes remained under one metre of water due to seawater inflows. 
It was reported that 17 districts in Surat Thani were hit by floods, affecting 106,874 residents, causing three deaths and leaving one person missing. More than 1,700 homes, 7,300 farms, 200 fish ponds, 180 roads, 160 bridges and seven dams were damaged at a cost of Bt60 million. 
The one-week flooding has also caused many residents to develop water-borne sickness.
Phuket public health office yesterday morning sent flood-relief items and medical supplies to Nakhon Si Thammarat province. Similar emergency items will be sent to other flood-hit provinces such as Surat Thani, Trang, Phatthalung and Songkhla.
Residents in Nakhon Si Thammarat’s Pak Phanang district have urged state agencies to help to drain floodwater out of the Pak Phanang River Basin before their farms, including rubber, oil palm and pomelo plantations, are destroyed by floodwater. 
The basin area, which covered Pak Phanang, Chalerm Phrakiat, Chian Yai and Cha-uat, had been inundated.
Nakhon Si Thammarat Governor Charoen Tipayapongthada said 301,557 residents had been affected by floods, which have claimed five lives, damaged 890 homes and 159,363 rai of rice field, 15,889 rai of plantations, and 1.1 million rai of orchards and other farm areas.