False tsunami alarm creates chaos in southern Thailand
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-12-15 11:50

False tsunami sirens activated by mistake have created chaos and panic in the six Andaman coastal provinces, local press reported Thursday.

After the sirens were sounded around midday Wednesday, local people and tourists in parts of Krabi, Phangnga, Phuket, Ranong, Satun and Trang ran for their lives, leading to the injuries of several people and collision of cars.

In Prangnga province, villagers of Ban Nam Khem hid for hours until officials in pickup trucks told them the coast was safe. Eight people were reportedly injured in road accident in the village.

In Krabi, throngs of people in tambon Ao Nang, Muang district, were caught in disarray as they raced to higher ground.

Similar scenes were also observed on Phi Phi island, where many foreign tourists were sunbathing when the siren accompanied by evacuation instructions in different languages were sounded.

The sirens, fitted to warning towers in tsunami-risk locations, were went off by a technician who had accidentally pressed an alarm button, setting off warning in the six provinces, Plodprasop Suraswadi, director of the National Disaster Warning Center was quoted by Bangkok Post newspaper as saying.

He offered apology to local people and explained the technician had wrongly pressed the warning button instead of the system-test button.

Jim Hanas, chief engineer at Raydant International Company contracted to provide tsunami warning solutions, promised compensation in cases where the false alarm had caused car accidents.

However, local authorities told angry residents the sirens were a test-run ahead of an actual drill in the six provinces on Friday.

It is the third time since last year's tsunami that the National Disaster Warning Center has mistakenly sounded the alarm. The first two mistakes were made due to the overreaction of the center's senior staff.