BANGKOK, April 2 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Thailand Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-o-cha will be meeting the northern provincial governors to discuss and find ways to tackle the choking smog in the northern region of Thailand.
Prayuth said he was closely monitoring the haze and forest fires in northern provinces and hoped the meeting would provide first-hand information on unhealthy levels of haze in the provinces.
“There are many open burning and forest fires despite the ban to ease the stifling haze. Therefore, we will come down hard on the open burning culprits.
“We have arrested many of them however many cases of open burning are still reported. This means the law is not fully enforced,” he told the media here Monday.
Thailand Meteorological Department said the dry spell in most of the northern provinces including Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai is expected to last until mid-May.
Prayuth said the local authority, as well as provincial authorities, have been working hard and doing their level best in tackling smog. However, it is important to educate the people to stop land clearing through open burning in the current dry spell.
“We need everyone’s cooperation in tackling the choking haze,” he said.
When asked on allegations that setting forest fires are aimed to discredit the government, Prayuth said the matter would be investigated.
“Please don’t mix the matters (politics and smog) together. I don’t want anyone to use the issue on smog to garner political mileage. If everything is linked to politics, the country will never move forward,” he said.
Meanwhile, Chiang Mai Governor Supachai Lamsuwan said a provincial level disaster management plan is in place with cooperation among local authority and relevant agencies in the province, since March 24 to improve smog in the northern region of Thailand especially Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son.
“It is an urgent need to stop forest fires that blanket the north in smoke,” he told Bernama.
Last month, Supachai announced immediate measures taken to improve the haze in the province including the creation of safety zones in every district of the provinces to provide temporary shelters for a vulnerable group, no open burning until end of April as well as a quick response to forest fires.
Chiang Mai and most of Thailand’s northern provinces have recorded levels of PM2.5 beyond 300 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m³) while the Air Quality Index (AQI) are at a ‘very unhealthy’ level – beyond 400.
At 3 pm (local time) on Monday, the PM2.5 reading at Chiang Rai stood at 179 µg/m³, Chiang Mai (141 µg/m³) and Mae Hong Son (216 µg/m³).
Meanwhile, AQI reading at Chiang Rai was at 289, Chiang Mai (251) and Mae Hong Son (326) as of 3 pm (local time).
Local English daily, The Nation reported that an academic has called on the government to declare a state of emergency in Chiang Mai and most of Thailand’s northern provinces over the ‘disastrous’ levels of smog.
Witsanu Attavanich, a lecturer at Kasetsart University said some areas of Chiang Mai recorded the levels of PM2.5 beyond 700 µg/m³ on Saturday morning.
–NNN-BERNAMA
