PHUKET: The Royal Thai Navy Third Area Command has confirmed to the Phuket Gazette that it will continue its search-and-rescue mission for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the Malacca Strait.
PHUKET: Police investigating stolen passports linked to the missing Malaysian Flight MH370 questioned the owner of a Phuket motorbike rental shop from which one of the passports used to board the flight was stolen. Luigi Maraldi explained to the press yesterday that he filed a report to the Patong Police on July 25 last year confirming that his passport was lost after he left it as collateral for a rental motorbike (story
SPECIAL REPORT PHUKET: Human traffickers have kept hundreds of Rohingya Muslims captive in houses in northern Malaysia, beating them, depriving them of food, and demanding a ransom from their families, according to detailed accounts by the victims. The accounts given to Reuters suggest that trafficking gangs are shifting their operations into Malaysia as Thai authorities crack down on jungle camps near the border that have become a prison for the Muslim asylum seekers fleeing persecution in Myanmar. Police in the northern Malaysian states of Penang and Kedah have conducted several raids on the houses in recent months, including an operation in February that discovered four Rohingya men bound together with metal chains in an apartment.
Thanapong Jinvong, 50, is Director of the Academy of Road Safety at the National Health Foundation and also works at the Department of Disease Control. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University with a specialization in epidemiology. Here, he talks about three ways to improve road safety in Thailand, which ranks third in the world for road deaths.
PHUKET: Striking Region 8 International Volunteers are back to work after negotiations with police, announced Acting Patong Police Superintendent Sakchai Limcharoen.
PHUKET: A fire broke out in a dry field along Thepkrassatri Road yesterday that required firefighters from three stations two hours to put out. The fire, which started at 12:45pm, affected about five rai of land but did not cause any damage to property or to people in the area, said a Thepkrasattri Municipality Emergency Medical Service worker
PHUKET: After enduring huge waves and strong winds for several years, residents of a seaside village in the province of Krabi have adapted to the effects of climate change by using bamboo to build temporary barriers to prevent coastal erosion. The barriers were built along a 500-meter stretch of coastal area in the fishing community in Klong Prasong, Muang district, to reduce the impact of waves that erode the seashore and destroy residential areas, especially in monsoon season from June to November every year.
PHUKET: A ship carrying cargo was engulfed by flames near Koh Naka, off Phuket’s east coast this afternoon. Phuket Marine Police were notified of the incident at about 4pm by a speedboat captain. First reports are that all on board the ship were safely rescued by the passing speedboat.
PHUKET: Koh Sireh sea gypsies received 6,000 liters of water yesterday after they told Phuket Marine Police they had a water shortage.
PHUKET: A man trying to free his girlfriend’s new car from the sand of a Phuket beach yesterday sent it up in flames instead.