6 tourists stranded in heavy floods in Mae Hong Son rescued on Monday

Heavy overnight rainfall left Mae Hong Son’s Pang Mapha district so paralysed from heavy flooding that officials had to be dispatched to evacuate six stranded tourists.

Weerapong Ratanasri, the district’s chief, was alerted at 7am that heavy rain through the night and early morning had flooded the Pang Mapha Field Crops Research Centre and made the main road inaccessible.

The flooded main road also cut off a resort in Ban Rai Village in the Sobpong subdistrict, leaving the six tourists staying there stranded.

Weerapong coordinated with park officials, troops, police, the tambon administrative organisation and a fire station to come together and help evacuate the three men, two children and a woman who were stranded.

The main road was about 1.6 metres underwater at about 7am. 
Pornthep Charoensuebsakul, director of the Mae Hong Son-based 16th conservation centre, said on Monday that he had learned from Nikorn Kaewmora, chief of Pai Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, that Pang Mapha had been hit by heavy rain since Sunday night. 

The Doi Khiew Mountain in the Sobong subdistrict measured the rainfall at 148 millimetres.

This heavy rain has left two villages – Ban Rai and Ban Tha Krai –  inundated and Highway No 1095 was also underwater, leaving the villagers stranded.

Pornthep said he has instructed officials from the wildlife sanctuary to use rafts to evacuate villagers and tourists.