Most of the victims were foreigners due to their high amount of spending and the fact they rarely checked their accounts, Sommai said.

Direk, 50, was arrested carrying Bt20,000 that was allegedly withdrawn using six fraudulent ATM cards on Saturday.

Sommai alleged Direk spent most of the hundreds of thousands of baht he stole on expenses and entertainment. An anonymous source said the total amount allegedly stolen was about Bt40 million and the thefts had been ongoing for four years.

The blaze in Soi Narathiwat 18 claimed one victim, Angkana Aisiri, 65, who died by suffocation. |The cause of the fire was the burning of Chinese New Year offerings on the third floor, which was left unattended.

“There are some steel bars jutting up from the floor, which can |be repaired, but permission from |an engineering specialist and the BMA are needed,” Taiwut Khankaew, director of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s Building Control Division, said yesterday.

According to a survey by the Engineering Institute of Thailand, no improper expansion of the 10-storey building was found, but the flames spread quickly because the interior was mostly decorated with teak.

It said all 11,300 buildings that fit the nine categories in ministerial regulations on building inspections must be examined by experts – once a year – to prevent such tragedies.

The categories are buildings taller than 23 metres, buildings larger than 10,000 square metres, buildings that can accommodate more than 500 people, any kind |of theatre, hotels larger than |80 rooms, residential buildings larger than 2,000 sqm, factories taller than one storey or larger |than 5,000sqm, billboards taller than 15m or larger than 50sqm and entertainment establishments larger than 200sqm, he said.

A STORM surge and subsequent flood in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat swept 10 vacant homes into the sea in the hard-hit Pak Phanang district early yesterday while many local schools were forced to close temporarily.

Local officials said later that 88 villages in six districts had been affected by the big waves.

The “highest tide rise in 50 years” saw waves up to four-metres hit Pak Phanang coastal areas, swamping homes, farmland and fishponds.

It also made parts of the beachside Pak Phanang to Hua Sai Road in Tambon Khanab Nak and Tha Phraya impassable – a three-kilometre section had waves crossing the road and hitting dozens of homes.

Army and disaster prevention and mitigation officials helped residents move belongings to safer grounds.

Fisherman Chiew Channuan, 68, said he had to stay in his house, which was on the verge of being hit by waves because he didn’t earn any income from fishing at present – so he had no where to go.

Many families called for state agencies to find a permanent solution to the storm surges, rather than just donating relief bags and leaving.

In Muang district, Wat Mukthara School in Tambon Pak Nakhon was flooding by a high tide. Teachers had to move items to higher ground and cancel classes yesterday.

Local communities and fishponds were flooded while fishing boats had to anchor in canals due to the strong wind and waves.

Thirteen of the 85 homes in Ban Koh Rad, a community of Thai-Chinese fishermen in Surat Thani’s Don Sak district, were damaged yesterday, as well as a 275-metre section of a Bt3 million beachside trail.

Ferries to the islands in the Gulf had to be assessed hourly, with only three trips made early yesterday.

On the Andaman coast, a speed boat was sent out from Phi Phi Island to pick up four French and two Argentinean tourists and take them to Krabi yesterday after they were stranded at Koh Phai by waves since Sunday.

The rough weather turned over a long-tail boat with six Chinese tourists off Krabi on Sunday, killing a 64-year-old woman and injuring five others. The boat was heading from Koh Phai to Ao Nang when it was hit by three-metre waves.

Krabi authorities ordered small boats to stay put until today (Feb 9).

In Chumphon’s Muang district, the First Naval Region dispatched a Dornier patrol plane to assess the weather and a plan to retrieve a Thai cargo ship, the “Santhat Samut 1”, which was swept to shallow water 500 metres off Ban Khor Son Beach on Saturday. The captain and six crew were still on the 60-container ship with up to three days of food. But big waves forced a delay to the plan to tow the ship out.

Upper Thailand, meanwhile, has been hit by chilly weather since Sunday. Phetchabun’s popular Phu Thub Berk in Lom Kao district reported a temperature of 3 degrees Celsius, while Chiang Mai‘s Doi Inthanon National Park reported 0 Celsius and the “highest amount of frozen dew in the past year”, which impressed many tourists.

Similar cold and frozen dew was also reported in higher areas of Loei.

Suthee said the victim filed a police complaint on October 8, alleging she received phone calls from a man claiming to be a senior DSI official to notify her that she was under investigation for document forgery and money laundering. The gang allegedly told her to wire money on 16 occasions to various accounts “for inspection”, Suthee said, adding that the total amount transferred was Bt12.7 million.

Investigating police found the Taiwan-based gang allegedly made international phone calls to dupe Thai victims, and Xang would travel to Thailand to withdraw the money. Police monitored him on such trips and arrested him.

A search at his rented room in Bangkok’s Lat Phrao district found evidence such as a device that could change cellphone numbers into numbers used by state agencies.

Dismal university entrance exam results |continue, as solutions evade educators

THE NATION

THE LOW scores posted by high school students in their lengthy series of university-entrance examinations has come as no surprise to educators who say fixing the problem remains elusive.

The results of the tests in nine core subjects show that the average score in each subject was less than half the 100-point total, said Assoc Prof Samphan Phanphruk, director of the National Institute of Educational Testing Service (NIETS). There were 179,968 students tested.

The scores on the nine subject exams are used to evaluate students who applied for admission at one of 27 universities nationwide. The NIETS system is just one of several ways students can get into a university.

The NIETS was assigned by the Council of University Presidents of Thailand to organise the general examinations, with universities considering applicants based on their scores through a clearing-house system. The system was not popular among students this year because there were fewer universities involved.

Among the other options to get into university is the exam to get into a student’s preferred institution. Many state-run universities offer the direct exam but most universities take students based on the national admission system.

Under the admission system, students scores are calculated from the following tests – general aptitude, professional and academic aptitude, and ordinary national educational. Each student’s grade point average is also factored in.

Widely known as the GAT/PAT, this evaluation method was introduced in 2009. It was given three times a year until 2010. In 2011, it was given only once a year. And since 2012 it has been given twice a year.

The results of the first GAT/PAT this year were released last month and showed the average score was less than half the 300-point maximum for each subject.

While some students got a full score of 100 in each of the nine subjects and a full score of 300 for each subject in the GAT/PAT, many students got zero in the tests, according to Samphan.

Students generally do well only in the Thai-language tests, with most scoring more than half on the nine-subject Thai test and GAT/PAT test. For the 100-point score for Thai, the average score was 56.6.

Prof Somphong Chitradub, from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Education, said the gloomy picture that emerged from the nine tests was not unprecedented but it showed a chronic problem in the education system and the failure to adequately address it.

NIESTS needs to analyse the results to understand what happened, he said.

Pong-in Rakariyatham, rector of Nation University, said he was not surprised by the results from the nine tests as the average score for each subject had never gone far beyond 50.

“Rather than expressing our shock every year after the exam results come out, the point is how do we improve our students’ performance in the exams,” he said.

A SPANIARD accused of murdering a compatriot in Bangkok insisted yesterday that he is innocent. He claims he knew the victim but did not kill him, national police chief Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda said.

However, Chakthip said police were confident that the evidence they have gathered is strong enough to prove that Arthur Segarra, 37, killed and dismembered David Bernat in January.

The police chief flew by helicopter to Trat province yesterday to pick up Segarra, who fled Thailand via Chong Chom border checkpoint in Surin province to Cambodia – only to be arrested in the seaside town of Sihanoukville on Sunday.

“The suspect still denies any involvement in the killing, [but] he admitted that he knew the victim,” the police chief said. The suspect had entered Thailand 271 times. For now, it seemed that he had no accomplice.

Pol General Panya Mamen, the chief investigator, said forensic evidence and statements from witnesses pointed to the suspect of being the killer of Bernat.

Earlier reports said that Segarra was planning to escape by sea before he was arrested in Sihanoukville.

The Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Segarra for the alleged premeditated murder and burying, hiding, moving and destroying the body to conceal the cause of the death.

The Spaniard, born in Catalonia, is accused of killing Bernat, a businessman also from Catalonia, before cutting up the corpse and dumping it into the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok at several locations.

The body parts were found in several places in Bangkok and nearby provinces.

Thai police also held for questioning Segarra’s Thai girlfriend, Pridsana Saenubon, who admitted that he had fled from Bangkok to the northeast province of Surin with her.

Segarra was eating dinner in a Surin restaurant when he was identified by a group of local people who had seen news reports of the murder. He allegedly fled to neighbouring Cambodia on a red Honda motorcycle, found abandoned near the border on Saturday morning.

He is thought have travelled to Sihanoukville, which is about 760 kilometres from the Surin border, before being arrested on Sunday.

“We have learnt that the suspect had planned to leave Sihanoukville by sea for an unknown destination,” the source said. The arrest was conducted at a local restaurant after Cambodian national police received a tip-off from their local counterparts.

Sihanoukville has gained notoriety as a transit point for smuggled goods, as well as other illegal activities.

The source said that Segarra is still denying any involvement in the killing of Bernat. He has already been charged for overstaying his visa.

Bernat, 40 was last seen alive on January 20 in Bangkok, in the company of another foreigner.

Police said the victim appeared to have been tortured and then asphyxiated between January 25 and 27. They believed it was an extortion case – that he was kidnapped and murdered for financial reasons.

Police had detected “movements of large quantities of money” from Bernat’s accounts in Singapore to banks in Spain and Thailand, where Segarra also had accounts. Forensic officials searched a condo in Huay Kwang in an attempt to find more evidence on the murder of Bernat.

Another source said the suspect had rented the condo since July. Chief investigator Pol Gen Panya Mamen declined to say whether the body was dismembered at the condo.

They also expanded the search to a house in the Ramkamhaeng area for the second time in a bid to find out whether Segarra had accomplices. The source said an investigation into security camera footage showed that Bernat was seen with the suspect just before disappearing.

Taiwanese Interior Minister Chen Wei-zen, who heads the Central Emergency Operation Centre, said all emergency crews would continue to search for survivors, state-run Central News Agency reported.

The death toll in the southern city of Tainan climbed to 26 and an estimated 500 people were injured, according to the emergency centre.

Nearly 100 victims were still being treated in hospitals and 124 people, including 29 children, remained missing, it reported.

“In the wake of the deadly earthquake, we clearly know that we still have a lot to improve the public safety,” Ma said.

Most of the missing people were in the 17-storey apartment building that collapsed in the city’s Yungkang district.

Authorities suspect shoddy construction could be the reason the building did not hold up in the quake that struck at 3:57am (2:57am Bangkok time) on Saturday.

The search for survivors lasted through the night. A 14-year-old girl was rescued after being trapped under debris for 27 hours, the Apple Daily reported.

Emergency crews found signs of life in the rubble in the morning and successfully rescued six people from the collapsed building, the agency reported. A 32-year-old man was able to crawl out.

Tainan Mayor Lai Ching-te said search efforts had slowed because emergency crews had to carefully remove the rubble by hand, in order not to hurt possible survivors, Apple Daily reported. Lai arrived at the site with a Japanese team of volunteers, local media reported.

Lai said it was not easy to confirm the number of the missing and maybe more than 100 people were at the very bottom of the large collapsed residential complex.

“However, based on reports filed by residents, we now target 18 places for 63 residents trapped under rubble,” Lai was quoted as saying by Apple Daily.

Prime Minister Chang San-cheng also visited injured people in hospitals and expressed his condolences to the families of victims. The collapsed apartment building was home to about 250 people in 96 households, according to the emergency centre. But headcounts of survivors showed that more than 300 people were inside at the time of the quake.

The number of people in the building may have swelled ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, when families typically host guests or relatives from other areas.