Lat­est from flood hit Thailand
The death toll from the most dev­as­tat­ing flood­ing to hit Thai­land in over 60 years fol­low­ing heavy rains since late July has now risen to almost 300.
Near­ly three mil­lion peo­ple are said to have been affect­ed by the floods and the dis­as­ter has caused seri­ous dam­age to the country‘s agri­cul­ture and oth­er indus­tries, with Japan‘s Toy­ota, Sony and Hon­da along with USA’s West­ern Dig­i­tal — and many oth­er fac­to­ries to the north of Bangkok — sus­pend­ing pro­duc­tion until the sit­u­a­tion improves.
Dam­age so far has been assessed at more than 20 bil­lon baht and 26 out of the country’s 77 provinces are affect­ed, while Bangkok is brac­ing for a large amount of run-off water that is about to reach the city and which will coin­cide sea­son­al high tides that will make it hard­er for the flood waters to flow out to sea.
Ama­teur radio has been assist­ing with flood relief com­mu­ni­ca­tions, help­ing vic­tims in the affect­ed areas and oper­a­tors are using the Radio Ama­teur Soci­ety of Thai­land (RAST) club sta­tion call­sign HS0AC and a spe­cial flood relief cen­tre with the call­sign HS0AB has been estab­lished at Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport.
Please be for­mal­ly advised that Thai radio ama­teurs are stand­ing by on 144.900MHz, 145.000 MHz and 144.9375 MHz (VHF) as well as on fre­quen­cies of 7.063 and 7.060 MHz in the 40-metre HF band.
RAST is active­ly assist­ing in flood relief oper­a­tions and the soci­ety is accept­ing dona­tions by bank trans­fer to its Sav­ings Account at the Krung Thai Bank (KTB), Pradi­pat Branch, Account Num­ber 034–1‑86101–4.
Here is a video show­ing activ­i­ties at the spe­cial flood relief ama­teur radio sta­tion at Don Mueang Air­port (in Thai):

RAST is also post­ing infor­ma­tion about devel­op­ments to its web site at www.qsl.net/rast
RAST would like to thank the IARU in advance for noti­fy­ing mem­ber soci­eties of this dis­as­ter and of the emer­gency fre­quen­cies being used to help flood vic­tims in Thai­land at this time.
Owing to the vol­ume of water and con­tin­u­ing rain­fall, this emer­gency is like­ly to con­tin­ue for many more days and we will noti­fy the IARU Region 3 once things return to normal.
Sin­cere 73,
Tony Waltham, HS0ZDX
The Radio Ama­teur Soci­ety of Thai­land (RAST) under the Patron­age of His Majesty the King.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man, IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee via Ken Yamamo­to JA1CJP, Sec­re­tary, IARU Region 3.