Thai Radio Ama­teurs assist­ing with relief efforts.
The worst flood­ing in decades in part of Thai­land caused by heavy mon­soon rain over the past two weeks has claimed at least 56 lives and affect­ing 940,000 homes in 32 provinces.
The Bangkok Post news­pa­per has report­ed that ama­teur radio oper­a­tors in Nakhon Ratchasi­ma and Chaiya­phum are help­ing author­i­ties coor­di­nate res­cue and relief efforts.
The IARU mem­ber Radio Ama­teur Soci­ety of Thai­land (RAST) on its web­site reports that the com­mu­ni­ca­tions tal­ents and capa­bil­i­ties of radio ama­teurs are being put to good use.
Nakhon Ratch­si­ma is Thailand’s biggest province, which has a pop­u­la­tion of 2.7 mil­lion in 32 dis­tricts with 3,700 villages.
The nat­ur­al dis­as­ter has destroyed more than 80,000 hectares of rice pad­dies, most just weeks away from har­vest time that pro­vides many farm­ers with their annu­al source of income.
The Nakhon Ratchasi­ma Ama­teur Radio Asso­ci­a­tion (NRARA) has set up a coor­di­nat­ing cen­tre using the call sign HS3AN.
Locat­ed at the provin­cial hall, it has been work­ing close­ly with gov­ern­ment agen­cies, relay­ing details about the emer­gency sit­u­a­tion to offi­cials and relief workers.
NRARA Pres­i­dent, Charn­chai Siri­amorn­pan HS4XU, said ama­teur radio oper­a­tors had also pitched in to help sol­diers, vol­un­teers and foun­da­tion work­ers get food to flood vic­tims and fer­ry women are in advanced stages of preg­nan­cy to hospital.
The Bangkok Post said that gov­ern­ment licensed ama­teur radio users are allowed to com­mu­ni­cate with one anoth­er using VHF and HF (short wave) radio com­mu­ni­ca­tions. They often oper­ate in areas where mobile phone sig­nals can’t reach.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man, IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Communications