The Northern Meteorological Centre (NMC) said yesterday that weather conditions during this period were the main factor for the current air pollution in the northern region.

Wind from the southwestern direction during the summer months also brings smog and very fine particulate matter from open burning locally and in neighbouring countries, which results in air pollution that threatens people’s health.

Worapoj Khunawiwatthan-angoon, a meteorologist at the NMC, said the recent haze problem in many northern provinces, especially Chiang Mai and Lampang, was associated with the sharp rise of hotspots upwind, in areas southwest of the Chiang Mai-Lamphun Valley.

“During this time of the year, the wind is blowing from southern and western directions and as there is a lot of burning both in the region and neighbouring countries in upwind areas, the smog from the burning is carried downwind,” Worapoj said.

The Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency’s (GISTDA) data showed there were 81 hotspots on Tuesday in nine northern provinces. These hotspots were mostly in Tak, Mae Hong Son and Nan, as the hotspot counts of these provinces were at 30, 20, and 19 respectively, while there were many more hotspots in Myanmar.

Tuesday’s hotspot count was considerably higher than the previous days. As on Sunday, there were only 13 hotspots in the region.

Hotspots, where open burning areas were detected by satellites, were the main source of very fine particulate in the air and resulted in health threats, lower visibility, and disruptions to businesses and tourism.

Haze information from neighbouring countries in Asean, provided by the Specialised Meteorological Centre, showed that very dense smog covered large areas along the Thailand-Myanmar border, especially in Mae Hong Son province in Thailand and Karen state in Myanmar.

Worapoj said that due to the current severe haze problem in the North, people should refrain from doing outside activities, especially during the morning. Colder temperature in the morning hours will trap the air pollution on the ground, but the hotter weather in the afternoon will make the air pollution rise higher along with warm air and spread into the wind.

He also said that the bad air quality was predicted to last until Sunday, as rains and summer storms were forecast in the upper part of Thailand from Sunday until Wednesday, which will greatly reduce the air pollution.

According to the Pollution Control Department’s air quality real-time monitoring website, the level of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns has been increasing beyond the country’s safe limit of 50 micrograms per cubic metre of air, in many provinces.

As of yesterday, the PM2.5 daily average level in Lampang’s Mae Moh district reached a harmful level of 76.79 micrograms, while in Chiang Mai it was at 76.28 micrograms, and in Tak’s Mae Sot district it was 62.45 micrograms.

However, Chiang Mai and Lampang were not the areas with the most severe air pollution if visibility were considered.

These two provinces had visibility at 10 kilometres compared to only three kilometres in Mae Hong Son and Lamphun, due to dense smog.

Following the survey by a public-private committee yesterday, the Network to Reclaim Doi Suthep Forest reaffirmed that constructions encroaching on forestland must be demolished to minimise environmental damage.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha suggested that it was unlikely court officials would be using these buildings following the controversy and urged those who are opposed to the project to use the buildings for public purposes instead.

“We want the forest back,” the network’s coordinator, Teerasak Rupsuwan, said yesterday.

He said Chiang Mai people did not want to see any building in a forest zone.

“Users will only be cursed,” he said.

He emphasised that it was necessary to rehabilitate the forest at the construction site fast otherwise rain would likely bring mud and soil to the Mae Chok dyke during the upcoming rainy season.

“That dyke provides water to Chiang Mai residents. If soil and mud goes there, water may be spoiled,” he said.

He believed Prayut would change his mind when he sees the controversial site with his own eyes and receives full information on the environmental impact.

Teerasak was speaking after he joined the public-private committee, set up by the Third Army Area chief Lt-General Wijak Siribansop on Monday, to survey the controversial location from outside the construction site.

To date, the Court of Appeals Region 5, which acquired the plot for the construction from the government, has not yet approved the request for the committee to survey the construction site.

“But even from the outside, locals can tell the constructions have encroached on forest zone,” Teerasak said.

Meanwhile, an online campaign against court officials’ residences at the foot of Doi Suthep on Change.org has received more than 46,000 supporters.

Launched by Dr Thanong Thongphubate, the campaign urged the Court of Appeals Region 5 to vacate the land.

The court has maintained that it acquired the plot and the budget legally for the project.

Thanong’s campaign argues that, legality aside, the constructions at the current controversial site has hurt the landscape and ecology of Chiang Mai.

“It’s not worth using land this way,” the campaign said.

A Netizen, who signed his name in support of the campaign yesterday, said forests belonged to nature – not humans.

Environmental restoration has been slow and obscure, while the affected people still await compensation.

Karen Education and Development Centre director Surapong Kongchantuk said yesterday that the Pollution Control Department (PCD) had begun environmental restoration at Klity Creek in February – five years after the Supreme Administrative Court ordered the PCD to clean up the contaminated creek.

Surapong drew attention to the fact that the PCD environmental restoration plan had no provision for the complete disposal of lead-contaminated sediment in the creek. He said he was worried the creek would remain contaminated and threats to the local people’s health would also remain.

He disclosed that the polluters – Lead Concentrate Co Ltd and the company’s executives – were yet to comply with the judgement of the Supreme Court on September 11, 2017, which ordered defendants to compensate all the 151 affected people for a total of Bt36.05 million and also clean up the contamination in the creek.

He said for two decades the people of Klity Village have had to live with lead contamination in their main water source – Klity Creek – as a result of one of the worst environmental disasters from direct disposal of slag and mining waste into the creek.

Local people fought hard and won an administrative lawsuit against the PCD.

The Supreme Administrative Court judgement on January, 2013, ordered the PCD to properly perform its duty by cleaning up lead contamination in Klity Creek until a environment is entirely restored and lead levels in the water, sediment, and ecosystem are within the safe levels.

The PCD said it had contracted Better World Green Co Ltd for environmental restoration of Klity Creek within 1,000 days at a budget of Bt600 million. The contract came into effect on November 16, 2017, and ends on August 23, 2020.

Surapong said that instead of removing all contaminated sediment in the creek to detoxify and landfill by an industrial waste management company, the operation only moved the toxic sediment to a landfill pit in the forest upstream from the villages without any detoxification.

He was worried that toxic lead would later leak from the landfill and contaminate the creek once again.

A Klity Lang villager, Wichit Arunsrisuwan, revealed that the PCD had not kept their promise to dig up all lead-contaminated soil and refill with laterite. Their clean-up operation last month only covered the contaminated soil with laterite, raising questions and concerns among local people about the sincerity of environmental restoration, as the lead contamination was still there.

Another villager, Kamthon Srisuwanmala, said local people had tried to seek information on the environmental restoration plan and monitor the operation but they were ignored by the PCD and the operation team. He said they did not get information and were not allowed to enter the operation site. He said this raised suspicion among local people whether the PCD was concealing the truth from them.

Commenting on the restoration plan for Klity Creek, environment expert Sonthi Kotchawat said that landfill of contaminated sediment from the creek in the local area would not be a problem if the contracted company strictly follows a secure landfill procedure. This requires two layers of protective liners at the bottom of the landfill pit and neutralisation of the toxic substance in the contaminated sediment, he explained.

Sonthi stressed that the major mistake the PCD had made in this case was it did not transparently disclose information about environmental restoration and did not allow the public to monitor the operation, which was a violation of the Official Information Act.

He suggested that the PCD set up a monitoring committee, with representatives from both the state authorities as well as local people, to jointly oversee the environmental restoration and work together to solve this chronic problem.

The 10 videos, called Knowing about fraudulent tricks and seeing through criminals for your financial security, shows tricks and how to handle them. They will be released monthly onwww.dsi.go.th, Facebook: DSI Family, www.thanachat.co.th, at Thanachart branches and the bank’s YouTube posts. They include a call-centre scam over a tax refund, an ultra-cheap tour package aboard as a lure and a “romance scam”. In this criminals pretend to be a good-looking person who has fallen in love with the victim online and claims to send an expensive gift that the victim must pay a tax bill to fake officials to release.

DSI chief Pol Col Paisit Wongmuang insisted no state agencies would contact individuals over the phone, especially to check their saving accounts. He also warned that the “romance scam” normally targeted older people.

Thanachart CEO Somjet Moosirilert said the bank had a “know your customer” protocol to verify identity and would apply more measures to prevent criminals opening bank accounts to deposit stolen money. The bank would check on those who paid only Bt300-Bt500 to open accounts and made withdrawals at around 3-5am, he added.

The ceremony kicks off today at 9.09 am with the blessing water-pouring ceremony on the Buddha Relics Reliquary and a Brahman prayer ceremony for the “navagrahas” or nine planetary gods of Hinduism.

The three-day festival (Thursday until Saturday) is a rare chance to worship close-up views and study the museum’s sacred treasures dating back to the 19th century.

The jewelled golden Buddha Relics Reliquary is one of the museum’s most sacred treasures.

On this occasion, the museum brings them for display to the Samran Mukhamat Pavilion.

The museum has invited the audience to dress in traditional Thai costumes for the free event, which will run through Saturday from 9am to 4pm.

The museum is closed during the Songkran Festival and will open its doors again on April 18.

The corruption was exposed when the man who offered the bribe, Wuttipong Sangkawan, himself reported it to the government.

“I need to speak up and ask for help because I have not got a job after waiting for about one year,” Wuttipong said on Wednesday.

He submitted evidence of bribery, which includes an audio clip and payment records, to the chief of Ubon Ratchathani’s Trakan Phutphon district.

The Tambon Kham Pia Administrative Organisation in Ubon Ratchathani province is headed by Prayad Lamom, who has been accused of receiving the bribe.

Wichai Duangkaew, the head the government’s complaint receiving centre in Ubon Ratchathani, summoned Prayad and Wuttipong to his office on Wednesday.

During the meeting, Prayad reportedly admitted to taking the bribe, and offered to repay Wuttipong in full.

Prayad handed over Bt135,000 to Wuttipong during the meeting and signed a contract to return Bt1450,000 on May 30.

“We will launch a disciplinary probe against Prayad,” Wichai said.

    Made famous by the 2000 movie “The Beach” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Maya Bay on the western Thai island of Koh Phi Phi Ley is now a case study in the ruinous costs of runaway tourism, swamped by up to 4,000 daily visitors.

“There is too many people here, it’s bad,” lamented Saad Lazrak, a 61-year-old from Morocco, as crowds around him swallowed the stretch of sand encircled by an amphitheatre of limestone cliffs.

Across the region, Southeast Asia’s once-pristine beaches are reeling from decades of unchecked tourism as governments scramble to confront trash-filled waters and environmental degradation without puncturing a key economic driver.

Thailand’s Maya Bay will be off limits for four months from June to September, officials announced last month, in a bid to save its ravaged coral reefs.

In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered this month the Boracay beach resort closed to tourists for up to six months from April 26, describing the destination as a “cesspool” tainted by sewage dumped directly into the sea.

Indonesian officials, meanwhile, declared a “garbage emergency” last year swamping a six-kilometre stretch of coast along the island of Bali.

The island’s grim coastal pollution was highlighted in March by British diver Rich Horner’s viral video of swimming through a dystopia of trash swirling off shore.

“Plastic bags, more plastic bags, plastic, plastic, so much plastic!” Horner said in a Facebook post that has been viewed more than a million times.

– Breathing space –

Conservationists and governments are worried about the health of coral reefs, which are in a dire state globally due to climate change and rising sea temperatures.

When exposed to warmer waters, they shed the algae that dazzle the eye and are vital to marine eco-systems, leaving the corals diseased or bone-white in a process called bleaching.

Environmental stress, including pollution, human contact and exposure to plastics that comes with mass tourism are also major threats to reefs that are part of the draw for snorkellers and scuba-divers.

“Tourism has a series of detrimental effects on coral health,” said Eike Schoenig, a Thailand-based marine biologist at the Center for Oceanic Research and Education.

Countries in Southeast Asia are looking to stem the threats without cutting off the cash flow of a regional tourism boom, led by China, the top source market for travellers to the region.

Thailand received 35 million tourists last year, of whom nearly 10 million hailed from China, according to official data.

But what is good for business can be bad for beaches.

Songtam Suksawang, Thailand’s National Park Office Director, told AFP he personally inspected the beach at Maya Bay and said it “must definitely be (temporarily) closed” in order to rehabilitate it.

He said authorities are discussing new rules once the shut-down is lifted, such as restrictions on the number of daily visitors, better regulation of boats and a higher entrance fee.

 – Tourism costs – 

Thailand is also conducting studies on six other marine parks, while the Philippines is weighing action on other top destinations buckling under mass tourism.

But governments are wary of curtailing an industry that creates jobs and buoys economies.

Spending on travel and tourism contributed nearly $136 billion to the region’s GDP in 2017, a figure forecast to rise to $144 billion this year, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.

The cost of the closures is already being felt in the Philippines, where hundreds of Boracay hotels and tour companies are facing steep losses from cancelled rooms, flights and other bookings.

But some countries are not taking such dramatic steps.

In Indonesia, the tourism ministry said there were no plans to close Bali or any other holiday destination in the archipelago, although it acknowledged that pockets of the tropical paradise were under strain from heavy tourism.

“Shut down Bali? I don’t think we will need to do that yet,” said ministry spokesman Guntur Sakti. “Bali is the centre of Indonesian tourism.”

In fact, Indonesia has identified 10 other destinations where it is trying to boost visitors and replicate Bali’s success, including neighbouring island Lombok and Lake Toba in Sumatra.

Experts are also sceptical that short shut-downs will have lasting effects.

“Bottom line is that temporarily closing the beach is probably not the optimal solution to these problems. It only take a day for a bunch of incompetent snorkellers to trash a small reef,” said Andrew Baird from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Australia.

In Thailand, the government hopes to draw people to lesser known beaches.

“We are working very hard to spread people out, not to go to one condensed area,” said Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine expert working with the parks and tourism authorities.

Travellers to Maya Bay might like the idea.

“It’s very touristy. There wasn’t a patch of sand that didn’t have people laying down on it, taking photos,” Oliver Black, a 22-year-old tourist, said of his afternoon at the destination.

As for his thoughts on the looming closure?

“It would not really upset me if I wasn’t able to go to (back to) Maya beach,” he told AFP.

Rescue staff along with a water truck rushed to scene at Tap Lamut pier in the district and found both speedboats engulfed by fire.

It took them two hours to extinguish the blaze. Police are investigating the cause of the fire.

The injured were a captain and three crew.

The department said the regulation had led to misunderstanding and confusion.

Travellers leaving the country had been required to provide documentation for the listed possessions and show them to Customs officials so they could be registered.

The registration documents had to be shown to customs officials who will conduct a random check on their return to Thailand.

The regulation was intended to ensure that items purchased overseas would be subject to taxation on landing.

The department still requires Thailand residents returning home from abroad to declare any such items purchased overseas and valued above Bt20,000 and to pay taxes on them.

Department director general Kulit Sombatsiri said the regulation was revoked because it had led to misunderstanding and discomfort among Thais travelling abroad during Songkran.

He said the regulation would be reviewed over the next few months and adjusted to make the process clearer.