More police, BMA officials deployed at two main water splashing sites in Bangkok
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and Metropolitan Police Bureau dispatched more police and BMA officials to maintain security and facilitate water-splashing activities at two main Songkran celebration sites in the capital on Sunday.
The BMA and police bureau decided to deploy more officials to watch water-splashing activities at the Khao San Road and Silom Road after the first day of the official celebration on Saturday drew a huge number of Thai and foreign revellers.
The BMA and other government agencies held a meeting of the Songkran monitoring centre at the BMA City Hall at 10am. The meeting was chaired by Somboon Homnan, deputy BMA permanent secretary.
The meeting reviewed the situation at the two roads on Saturday for planning the operations to keep security and facilitate flows of Songkran revellers on the two roads on Sunday.
Somboon said the monitoring on Saturday found that the number of Songkran revellers on the two roads was much higher than in previous years.
As a result, he said the centre decided to deploy more BMA officials and police to keep the celebrations at the two sites in order.
BMA officials would makes sure that vendors would not put up stalls on sidewalks and main roads as they would obstruct the flow of revellers, Somboon said.
He said officials would try to make sure that vendors and revellers themselves would not block a special way to be reserved for exit from the sites.
Silom Road is closed to traffic from noon to 8pm for Songkran celebrations, while the water splashing on Khao San Road runs from noon to 10pm.
Somboon said revellers must be careful against pickpocketing.
Pol Maj Gen Manop Sukhonthanapat, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said he would dispatch officers from police stations near Khao San Road and Silom Road to help maintain security.
Manop said police would use artificial-intelligence cameras to scan faces of revellers before allowing them to enter the venues. The AI cameras would alert police if they detected criminal suspects or those with criminal records.
Manop said police would also coordinate with property owners in the areas to provide parking for revellers.
He said police were still investigating complaints that taxi motorcyclists were overcharging revellers.
On the monitoring of accidents and fires on Saturday, Somboon said there were seven road accidents, killing six and injuring six. During the past three days, there were 77 accumulated road accidents in Bangkok.
He added that there were 24 fires in the capital, two building fires and 19 at roadside grass fields, and three vehicle fires.
