PM visits flood-hit
For the first time since her election campaign toured the South last July, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday visited heavily flooded Nop Phitam district in Nakhon Si Thammarat.
In her one-hour visit, the prime minister gave approval for three urgent projects requested by provincial authorities after making a public appearance and giving money and 1,300 bags of relief supplies to those affected. Cash was presented to owners of eight homes that were completely destroyed and 19 that were partially damaged in the flash flood last week.
The three projects are two bridges worth Bt53 million; the use of a 133-rai land plot in a forest reserve in Pak Phanang district to relocate a village from an area that is regularly flooded; and a fiscal exemption to immediately build dykes in four projects, worth Bt9.89 million.
Yingluck greeted the Nop Phitam residents in the Southern dialect, which drew loud cheers and applause from the crowd. She said she would visit the South more often following her failure to do so when the flooding peaked there and in eight other provinces.
Throughout the province, 353,200 people from 118,391 households and 1,062 villages in 15 districts were affected. Forty-five fishing trawlers capsized. Yingluck landed in the province in an Army aircraft, before taking a helicopter to the district with a three-helicopter escort.
It was her first non-rally trip to the South, which is a stronghold of the Democrat Party.
