Thai PM:Authorities closely monitor water situation

BANGKOK, September 21 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra says that authorities concerned have closely monitored the updated water situation countrywide, as her government has set up frontal centres in all provinces to prevent and deal with water-related problems. Yingluck told journalists Friday that the government's Water and Flood Management Committee (WFMC) has worked with other agencies concerned, namely the Thai Ministry of Interior's Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation and single command centres in flood-prone areas to steadily assess the updated water situation. Yingluck acknowledged that the official frontal centres, in which representatives of all local sectors participate in working out prepared-measures, are believed to timely address water-related problems in their respective areas. The prime minister said she has ordered agencies concerned to take care of current flooding in Thailand's northern Uttaradit province and those being in charge of the eastern region to be on alert 24 hours until next week to deal with any water-related incident, namely flash floods. According to the Thai premier, Deputy Prime Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit, who is also Interior Minister, has been assigned to take care of the national water situation during her forthcoming trip to the United States to attend the 2012 UN General Assembly in New York. As widespread scattered downpours, with heavy falls in some areas, have been forecast in Bangkok and its peripheral areas in the coming hours, concerned authorities of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives's Royal Irrigation Department met earlier Friday to discuss ways to efficiently improve water drainage. Meanwhile, the head of the Pliew Water Fall National Park in Chantaburi province in the Thai East, Chinnupong Promsamrit, announced a temporary closure of the water fall area for public safety due to continual rainfalls with accumulating rainwater on the Sa Bab mountain range lately, which could cause flash floods, but other tourist attractions in the eastern national park have remained opened to visitors as usual. The Khao Soi Dao Water Fall and the Nam Krating National Parks, also in Chantaburi, have announced a temporary closure of their water fall areas as well, saying that the areas at risk would be reopened if there were no new downpours for four hours and the water situation returned to normal. (TNA)