Thread: Yingluck to meet governors of nine flood-ravaged provinces

UNICEF ramps up efforts to help flood victims in Thailand

11 November 2011



The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is distributing more than 300,000 hygiene and sanitation items to flood-affected families in Thailand in an effort to prevent the spread of communicable diseases in the country.

"Hygiene and sanitation are always a major concern in any flooding situation," said Tomoo Hozumi, the UNICEF Representative for Thailand.

"Although no outbreaks have been reported so far, contaminated flood waters can result in water-borne diseases. The risk of these diseases can be reduced through safe sanitation and improved hygiene practices, such as frequent hand washing."

The items distributed include locally purchased bars of soap, chlorine drops of water purification, alcohol hand-wash gel and garbage bags, and are being delivered through the public health ministry.

Almost three million people have been affected by this year's unusually severe monsoon season, which has resulted in Thailand's worst flooding in 50 years. Vast swathes of the country's 29 provinces, including the capital, Bangkok, have been inundated and 533 people have been killed.

Mr. Hozumi said he was concerned with the number of children casualties, 77 in total, most of them young boys, due to drowning.

"Children stranded in houses surrounded by water have no space to play, so they end up playing in the water," Mr. Hozumi said. "Since many Thai children do not know how to swim, there is great risk involved."

According to a news release issued by the agency, to prevent child casualties, UNICEF is supporting the establishment of 'child friendly spaces' at 40 large evacuation centres to provide safe areas for recreation and support activities for children.

Mr. Hozumi said UNICEF is also concerned with getting children to resume their education. "Getting children back into school and back to a normal routine as soon as possible will help speed their recovery from this disaster," he said. "UNICEF wants to do all it can to ensure this."

In some areas where floodwaters are receding, the agency will be distributing 'school-in-a-box' kits to some 1,000 schools that have been severely damaged by the floods. Each kit contains teaching materials for up to 80 students and can be used in temporary locations while their schools are being repaired.

In addition to these activities, UNICEF is distributing thousands of pamphlets with practical and simple information for families to protect the health and well-being of their children as part of its emergency relief efforts.

Earlier this week, UNICEF launched a direct mail appeal to its donors in Thailand for funding to support flood response and recovery activities. At the moment, the agency has a budget of $1.2 million for post-flood assistance for health, education, child protection and sanitation relief


Big News Network.com

Asia Sentinel - Cost of the Thai Floods to Business

Written by John Berthelsen
Friday, 11 November 2011

Honda doesn't make motorboats, unfortunately

Under waters still almost two meters deep lies a disaster for multinationals and Thailand

At 10 am on Nov. 11, Sukejawa Seiya, the vice president of the Japan External Trade Organization in Bangkok, made his daily measurement of the floodwaters covering hundreds of factories on the Ayutthaya plain north of Bangkok. The water was still 1.89 meters deep. The average Thai male is 1.67 meters tall. It will be awhile before anybody goes back to work.

“We are still unable to assess the damage,” Seiya said in an interview. “We will have to wait until the water drains off before we can do an assessment.” It is certain to run into the tens, perhaps hundreds of billions of US dollars.

Although many of the companies have temporarily relocated production to other sites around the world in an effort to maintain export figures, despite the damage they have suffered, they intend to rebuild their factories in the same place, Seiya said. That should be a relief for Thailand, which has been battered by a long series of political crises going back to the 2006 coup that ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The floods since late July have killed at least 533 people and caused billions of dollars in damage to a region that, since the 1986 Plaza Accord agreement drove up the price of the yen, has become the manufacturing center of Southeast Asia, particularly in electronics and cars. The agreement helped to drive down the value of the US dollar against the yen by 51 percent between 1985 and 1987, with the result that first-line Japanese companies moved major segments of their production to Singapore and Thailand, sparking the first “miracle” development in Southeast Asia.

It is difficult to describe just how important this region has become to the world’s multinationals, and to the Thais themselves. Seiya estimates that at least 50,000 people have been put out of work in the 150-odd flooded Japanese factories alone. It is certain that no one will go back to work producing exports until 2012 and it is unsure when that will be.

Japan’s industrial plant has been particularly hard hit, a second blow after the Great East Japan Earthquake killed 20,000 people in Japan on March 11 and destroyed a large segment of the manufacturers’ supply chains. After that tragedy, some small and medium enterprises said they intended to follow the first-line companies overseas. The biggest foreign direct investor in Thailand, Japan’s manufacturers account for fully half of all such outlays, compared with 11 percent for the United States. Japanese Investment projects are in metal, machinery, transport equipment, electronics and electrical appliances, chemicals, paper and plastic.

Virtually all of the precision equipment that builds semiconductors, cars and electrical appliances has been ruined, Seiya said. The Japanese manufacturers are having to start over, shipping entirely new facilities to Thailand from Japan. However, he said, Japanese manufacturers are not giving up on the country and moving their plants elsewhere.

There are deep concerns in Thailand that the flooded semiconductor manufacturing facilities, which use heavy metals and other corrosive materials extensively, have exacerbated what was already an environmental disaster with a stew of poison still underwater. There have been demands that the companies provide details of their inventories and pay close attention to cleanup when the waters abate.

IHS iSuppli, an El Segundo, California based consultancy, said in a press release that some of the Japan’s and the US’s biggest semiconductor manufacturers have seen their test and assembly operations affected and have encountered indirect impacts from disaster-related disruptions among their domestic suppliers. HIS iSuppli estimated that the flooding would cut global hard disk shipments by 51 million units in the current quarter, to 125 million, driving prices up by possibly more than 10 percent for several quarters.

As with JETRO, Judy Benn, the executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand, said a recent survey of Amcham’s members indicated that none has plans to relocate out of Thailand because of the floods.

Only about 20 US companies have been affected by the floods, Benn said in an email. Despite serious supply chain issues, she said, “our companies are coping well and have been heavily involved in the relief efforts.” US companies have invested about US$40 billion in Thailand, mostly in electronics, auto parts and industrial goods.

It is certain that no one will go back to work producing products until 2012, and it is unsure when in 2012 that will be. Foreign companies doing business in Thailand supply 40 percent of the world’s hard drives. Carmakers, particularly Honda, Mitsubishi and Toyota, stopped production in early October. According to the Associated Press, Toyota had to suspend production of 150,000 vehicles, 90,000 of them in Thailand and 40,000 in Japan because of the loss of ancillary supplies including resin and electronic parts.

The Thai government, anxious to keep the multinationals in Thailand, has struggled to help the devastated companies by granting tax holidays and other benefits to manufacturers and has given tax write-offs for damaged raw materials. It has also relaxed visa requirements to allow the multinationals to bring in personnel from overseas to work to rebuild the damaged facilities. Virabongse Ramangkura, a former finance minister, has been put in charge of a reconstruction and development committee to get the industrial plant moving in the wake of the floods.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was inaugurated in July and almost immediately faced what may be her biggest crisis, has sought to reach out to Japanese businesses, going on an inspection tour of flooded industrial estates in Ayutthaya with Japan’s ambassador, Seiji Kojima.

More than 2 million people consult mobile medical units - The Nation

PUBLIC HEALTH
More than 2 million people consult mobile medical units


The Nation
Photo : Watcharachai Klaipong
November 29, 2011



Public Health medical units providing services in flood-hit areas have been consulted by about 2,000 patients per day, Public Health Minister Witthaya Buransiri said Tuesday, with most patients suffering from colds and Hong Kong foot.

The ministry's medical units were sent to flooded areas, particularly hard-hit Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani provinces to provide services, as people would find it difficult to travel to hospitals.

The units received about 2,000 patients a day and a total of 2,211,036 people had come for consultation, Witthaya said. However, there were no signs of any epidemics so far.

The ministry's permanent secretary, Dr Paijit Warachit, said that with the floodwater receding in many areas, almost all the 561 hospitals closed by the flooding had resumed services. However, some departments were not functioning pending renovations.