More heavy rain to fall this week
weather: The Meteorological Department has warned of more heavy rain across the country until Saturday, with flooding already affecting 12 provinces.
Director-general Chomparee Chompurat said yesterday a monsoon trough in the upper North and over upper Laos, and a southwestern monsoon over the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand brought heavy rain to the North, the East and the western coast of the South yesterday.
From today to Saturday a low-pressure front in upper Vietnam would combine with the monsoon trough over the North, the Northeast and the upper Central Plains. This would cause heavy rain nationwide.
10m e-lottery tickets sold
gambling: More than 10 million digital lottery tickets have sold out for the upcoming Sept 1 draw with discounts offered for certain tickets bearing less than popular numbers, according to the Government Lottery Office (GLO).
In total, 10.33 million digital lottery tickets were snapped up by 1.5 million people by Sunday. Special discounts were offered to brokers, who buy tickets in bulk, for lottery numbers regarded as less attractive, said Lawaron Saengsanit, director-general of the Revenue Department who is GLO board chairman.
The tickets went on sale on Wednesday.
1 killed, 1 injured in rebel attack
NARATHIWAT: One ranger was killed and another wounded when insurgents opened fire at an operations base in Chanae district yesterday at about 8.30am, police said.
The gunmen opened fire on the Ranger Company 4914 base from an abandoned house in Manang Sipo village in tambon Chanae.
Ranger Voravit Thiprak, 27, was killed and ranger Masur Chele, whose age was not reported, wounded. The two were at a sentry box at the base's entrance, police said. A probe is underway.
Tourist cops meet foreign envoys
diplomacy: The Tourist Police Bureau (TPB) is meeting with diplomats from 17 countries today to discuss ramping up measures to look after foreign visitors in the kingdom during the upcoming high season.
The meeting is expected to be attended by 40 representatives from Australia, Belgium, the UK, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia and Switzerland.
Pol Lt Gen Sukhun Prommayon, the TPB commissioner, said the meeting's agenda would include heightening of tourist safety measures and suppression of transnational criminals attempting to enter the country.
Even if the criminals manage to slip into the kingdom, the police will work with other countries in mounting operations to catch and deport them.
Runoff forces dam water discharge
KHON KAEN: More water is being discharged from Ubolratana Dam as runoff from continuous heavy rain continues to flow into the already half-full reservoir.
Sompong Chamkamol, the water management and maintenance director of the Regional Irrigation Office 6, said a water resources panel decided yesterday that more water needed to be discharged to keep the level under the dam's maximum capacity.
Yesterday morning, the water level in the dam was 177.92 metres above the mean sea level. The dam was holding 1,156 million cubic metres or 47.56% of its capacity of 2,431 million cbm. A total of 45.19 million cbm of water flowed into the dam reservoir on Sunday.
The panel decided to release water at the rate of 15 million cmb per day for until today, 18 million tomorrow, and 21 million on Thursday, Mr Sompong said.