About 4% of villages nationwide are suffering from water shortages, but reservoirs in the Central Plain hold about five-months' supply for general consumption, including Bangkok.
Chatchai Promlert, director-general of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, said on Wednesday that 3,092 villages in 13 provinces in the North, the Central Plain and the Northeast had been declared drought-stricken areas and they accounted for 4.12% of all villages in the country.
Twelve of the provinces lack water for agriculture. They are Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Kanchanaburi, Khon Kaen, Maha Sarakham, Nakhon Phanom, Nakhon Ratchasima, Phayao, Phitsanulok, Roi Et, Sa Kaeo and Surin.
Uttaradit province lacks water for general consumption, Mr Chatchai said.
His department was distributing water to affected people and supporting local administration organisations in drilling artesian wells.
In the Central Plain, the water level upstream from the Chao Phraya dam in Sapphaya district of Chai Nat province was critically low at 13.97 metres above mean sea level. It had remained below the safe level of 14 metres for three weeks.
The release rate at the dam was maintained at 75 cubic metres per second only to hold back seawater and feed tap water production in Central Plain provinces, including Bangkok. Water supplies for agriculture have already been stopped there.
The present level of reserved water would be enough for consumption over the next 173 days, or about five months, until May, according to the dam management.
Waterworks officials in Chai Nat extended their pump pipes to reach the lower level of water in the Chao Phraya River there to maintain tap water production for 11,000 families in the centre of the province, said Kitti Phumsrithorn, manager of the Chai Nat office of the Provincial Waterworks Authority.
