BANGKOK, 22 January 2014 The intense high pressure area maintaining its grasp over Thailand has caused the mercury to drop and fog to occur in many provinces in the North and Northeast.
At Doi Inthanon in Chiang Mai, heavy fog has reduced road visibility at some spots to between 5 and 10 meters, forcing tourists visiting the mountain to slow down their vehicles to a crawl. The temperature read 2 degrees Celsius on Tuesday morning at one of the scenic points on the mountain. Frost did not form on the ground, unlike in the previous cold period in December, because there was too much moisture from the fog.
In Chiang Rai, locals in many communities have kept a fire going through the coldest hours of each day to keep themselves warm. At the same time, the public health office in the province has warned locals against drinking alcohol to ward off the cold, as this could bring about fatalities instead.
In Tak, two men have been found to have died from the cold in separate locations. A Myanmar man, suspected to have been drinking, was found dead in front of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) office in Mae Sot district. Another man, also from Myanmar, was found dead at a cattle exchange market in Mae Pa sub-district, also in Mae Sot.
