As heavy downpours caused flooding in several areas in the tourist town of Prachuab Khiri Khan, personnel at Bang Saphan district hospital in the province on Thursday night decided to transfer several critically sick patients to other hospitals and suspended service for patients who need surgery and child delivery. 

Hospital director Dr Cherdchai Chayawattho, however, said the hospital still remains operational as normal although it has stopped accepting patients who need surgery and child delivery cases.

He said that critically ill patients were transferred to other hospitals on Thursday night. Although the hospital is safe for now, Dr Cherdchai admitted that there was serious concern that water runoffs from the Tenasserim mountain range on the border with Myanmar might pour into Bang Saphan district through Klong Bang Saphan and flood the district.

Currently, there are now about 70 patients at the hospital.  As for patients who need dialysis treatment, he said the hospital had arranged for transport to bring the patients to the hospital and back home.

Three small reservoirs in Bang Saphan district are now full and water is overflowing the spillway after the district was lashed with 207 mm of rainfall  since Thursday night until Friday morning and rain is still falling.

About 3,000 people in 1,700 households in Prachuab Khiri Khan are being affected with flooding and several of them have been evacuated to higher ground.

Villagers in Ban Klong Loy in Bang Saphan district have expressed concern that a reservoir located about 14 kilometres from their community might collapse due to the pressure of overflowing water.

Water at the Klong Loy reservoir has reportedly spilled over the spillway this morning and flooded a road running parallel to the reservoir.

The reservoir which has a capacity to hold 260,000 cubic metres of water collapsed two years ago, but it has since been fixed.