BANGKOK, 8 March 2014 The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation has declared 20 Thai provinces drought disaster areas.
Phitsanulok and Satun were the latest added to the list because of severe water shortage in some districts.
Most of the drought-hit areas are located in the North with eight provinces severely affected by lack of rain .
The declaration of a drought emergency prepares the way for the budgets of those provinces to be allocated to local communities for use in alleviating people’s hardship from the shortage of water.
Meanwhile, the total amount of water nationwide in reservoirs was 43 billion cubic meters, or 62% of capacity.
