Thai PM:Government keeps monitoring water situation

BANGKOK, August 18 (TNA) – Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra says that her government has kept monitoring updates of the water situation, as monsoon season has begun but forests in several upstream areas have been illegally cleared and need reforestation. Speaking during her weekly broadcast programme Saturday morning, Yingluck told the public that dykes and water sluice gates which were damaged from a massive flooding in Bangkok in late 2011 have been repaired and several canals have also been dredged to enable smooth water flows. Yingluck acknowledged that water embankments have also been heightened as advised by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej to protect, probably, floodwater from reaching inner parts of the capital. The prime minister urged people living along canals and rivers not to throw wastes and help look after them, noting that clean waterways will also become tourist attractions, and that surveillance cameras have been installed along Khlong Sam Wa on the eastern part of Bangkok, the site of a severe flooding late last year, and there are plans to install similar cameras at other important waterways in the city. Regarding to drought faced by people in several southern Thai areas, the premier revealed that she has ordered Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit and Natural Resources and Environment Minister Preecha Rengsomboonsuk to hold meetings with governors whose provinces are encountering the drought to discuss short-term solutions; while permanent dykes are to be built and innovative technologies are to be applied for solving drought in the long run. (TNA)