Northern Thailand News
Northern Thailand news, Chiang Mai news, business, tourism, and culture—stay updated with breaking stories, local events, and travel insights from Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Pai, and beyond. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted Northern Thailand news source.
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How to raise rats and other livestock: lessons from a north-eastern school
PHOTOS: The Nation A school in Surin province, north-east Thailand, is teaching students how to make a living raising small livestock such as wild rats and voles. Local farmers will often pay up to 1,000 baht for breeding rodents, with fully-grown ones sold for meat at 120 baht a kilo. Rodent meat remains a traditional food source in some parts…
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British man repays street vendor’s kindness by scamming him
PHOTO: Thai Residents and Sanook Surichat, a 50 year old BBQ food vendor in Khon Kaen province, north-eastern Thailand, became the victim of a shameless petty con-artist when he tried to help the man out of financial difficulty. The man introduced himself as ‘Stuart’ and claimed to be from England. He told Surichat he had a wife and child in Bangkok…
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After 60 years, electricity arrives in Ubon Ratchatani villages
PHOTO: Thai Residents Let there be light! After waiting 6 decades. More than 200 families in two villages in Ubon Ratchatani in north-eastern Thailand are celebrating the arrival of electricity in their homes. Residents in Si Muangmai district can now enjoy the delights of television and laptop computers for the first time in 60 years. Located along a 17 kilometre…
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Department warns of possible floods and landslides for 12 provinces
FILE PHOTO Officials and emergency responders in 12 provinces have been instructed to be prepared, and put equipment on standby, to cope with possible floods and landslides until August 20 (Tuesday). Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation director-general Chayaphol Thitisak says the alert was issued because of heavy downpours in the North, the Central and southeastern coastal areas. Officials were…
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Relatives of ‘slapped’ student say they will file complaint
Relatives of a Mathayom 2 schoolboy, who was slapped in the face by his teacher at the Sa Kaew’s Aranyaprathet district school, say they will still take action against the teacher. Sa Kaew is to the east of Bangkok on the Cambodian border. They have told local police that they, and the boy, have allegedly been harassed and threatened by…
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Korean auntie arrested in Chiang Rai and deported over company theft
PHOTO: INN News The Thai Immigration Policein Chiang Rai have reported the arrest of a Korean woman, Kyoungnam known as ‘Park’. She was prosecuted by the South Korean authorities on fraud charges and had an arrest warrant issued in her name by a court in South Korea. So Miss Park attempted to hide in Thailand and evade her arrest warrant…
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Thai woman threatens to strangle child on Facebook Live
PHOTOS: Manager Online Concerned provincial officials have visited a village in Khon Kaen, north-east Thailand, after a woman posted on Facebook live threatening to kill her one year old child. 41 year old Suphaporn Prab-arin, threatened to strangle the child with a belt then hang herself. During the video the baby was crying in a hammock nearby. After the story…
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Electronic cigarettes valued at 11.25 million baht seized in Mukdahan province
PHOTOS: Workpoint News Electronic cigarettes valued at 12.25 million baht, plus various vaping paraphernalia, has been seized in Mukdahan, in far north-east Thailand. E-cigarettes and vaping products are prohibited to import into and use in Thailand. The Mukdahan Provincial Customs Department report that they received information from related officials and planned a raid of an import shipment for a company called…
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Farmers fall for fake fertiliser in Kalasin
PHOTOS: INN News A gang selling fake fertiliser had been travelling around Kalasin in Thailand’s north-east selling their products to unsuspecting farmers. Kalasin Police arrested 5 suspects that were selling the unregistered fertilisers to farmers in the area. All of the suspects are originally from Roi Et Province, also in the north-east. They were delivering large bags of fertilisers to…
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Illegal forest poachers resorting to landmines to scare off rangers in Thailand’s east
PHOTO: Thai PBS Illegal loggers in Si Sa Ket, in eastern Thailand on the Cambodian border, have resorted to planting landmines to kill or maim forest rangers who try to interfere with their pursuit of the highly-prized Payoong, or Siamese Redwood trees in Thailand’s forest reserves. Other ordnance was found when rangers went to investigate the area. According to the…
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Lovestruck 22 year old Thai has a ‘very bad day’
PHOTOS and STORY: Sanook.com & WorpointNews.com Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but not a diamond thief’s. A man has stolen two diamond rings from a shopping mall in Nakhon Ratchasima. He told police he wanted the rings to show his girlfriend his ‘true love’. The two rings were valued at 84,000 baht. But true love would have to wait…
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Japanese man arrested by Thai Immigration police for alleged sex with underage girls
FILE PHOTO A 69 year old Japanese businessman has been arrested by police in Khon Kaen for allegedly having sex with at least three teenagers, multiple times. The teenagers were aged under 18 years of age. The Khon Kaen Immigration Bureau reported that that “Kazuo” (full name withheld) was arrested at a hotel in the province on Tuesday. The Nation…
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Three Thai airports being renovated to double passenger volumes
PHOTO: Surat Thani Airport will be doubled in capacity Krabi, Buriram and Surat Thani provincial airports are getting a makeover to double their capacities in 2020, with a combined budget of 11.3 billion baht. Krabi airport will be renovated and expanded to handle double its capacity. The new terminal will be able to handle 8 million passengers a year. A…
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Two Burmese migrants killed in Lampang van crash, 7 others injured
PHOTOS: Lampang13.com Two Burmese migrants have been killed and seven others injured when a passenger van crashed on the road from Tak to Chiang Rai. The van transporting them from Tak to Chiang Rai hit a tree on a Lampang road early today (Tuesday) around 3.40am in Lampang province. The van fell into the ditch in the middle of the divided…
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Tropical storm Wipha causes landslides in Tak
A heavy rainstorm passing through the north has triggered landslides that closed down a two kilometre long stretch of the Mae Sot-Mae Sariang highway in Tak yesterday, according to Khao Sod. Tak is west of Chiang Mai on the border with Myanmar. Five houses and one car were severely damaged but luckily nobody was hurt. Tha Songyang District Officer Prateep…
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‘Wipha’ whips up some storms and floods around Chiang Mai
PHOTOS: Entry to a local school turns into a river – The Nation Flooded roads are slowing down traffic and movement around the Chiang Mai area as a result of the fallout from tropical depression ‘Wipha’ which crossed the North Vietnam coast, heading westward towards Thailand, over the weekend. Om Koi district saw flooded road sections, while a large tree…
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Department ramps up cloud-seeding to ease drought in the Thailand’s northeast
“…he noted that drought in the middle of a wet season is very unusual.” The Department of Rain-making and Agricultural Aviation is stepping up cloud-seeding efforts to help generate much-needed rain for drought areas in the central-north and north-east regions of the country. Some areas need urgent rains to replenish the region’s eight major and 11 medium-sized reservoirs, where water…
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Si Sa Ket province declares dengue emergency
The northeastern province of Si Sa Ket, on the Cambodian border, has declared that the prevention and control of dengue fever required urgent attention throughout its area. Local health officials say they are now especially concerned about what will happen during the last three months of the annual wet season. Governor Weerasak Wichitsaengsi signed a Memorandum of Understanding for dengue…
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Four teenagers arrested for attacking police
4 teenagers were arrested and charged on Sunday with attacking 2 policemen in front of a nightclub in the north-east province of Nakhon Phanom, near the banks of the Mekong River. Sanook reports that the incident occurred happened around midnight on July 28 after an argument broke out between the teenagers and police. After the argument started to get physical,…
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“No water crisis in the Chao Phraya basin” – Irrigation Department
PHOTO: Bhumibol Dam in Tak when full, now holding only 4% of capacity The Royal Irrigation Department is assuring farmers and residents in the central and north-east that there is no risk of Thailand of severe water shortages. This is despite little rain in some areas during the annual wet season and the low levels of the Chao Phraya River…
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Resort used by Palang Pracharat over weekend may be on encroached land
PHOTO: 88 Garmonte Resort, Nakhon Ratchasima – Foursquare Thailand’s Department of National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation is mulling the demolition of a venue where Palang Pracharat held a seminar at the weekend. The party has come under fire from opposition MPs about using the forest resort which has allegedly encroached on forest land. Located in Wang Nam Khieo district in…
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No rain in sight, eight Thai provinces on verge of water crisis
Thailand’s water situation is becoming critical with eight provinces now listed as critical. Officials are now describing the situation as the worst drought in 50 years. PM General Prayut Chan-o-cha has allocated 1 billion baht to finance the expansion of local water bodies in drought-hit provinces. The lack of rain has left as many as 17 major dams in the…
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Fake goods valued at 11 million baht go up in smoke in Chiang Rai
Chiang Rai Province’s Customs Department in Mae Sai has incinerated illegal and fake items valued at over 11 million baht. The illegal items are goods that “do not follow the customs law of Thailand”, aka. fakes and brand copies. Most of the items were seized from the Thai-Burmese Border Gate in Mae Sai. The illegal goods were gathered and burned at…
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North-central Thailand’s Yom River in Phichit runs low
Stories keep emerging about river systems, the lifeblood of agriculture in northern and north-eastern Thailand, drying out or dropping dramatically in level. A section of the Yom River that runs through the Sam Ngam in district in Pichit, north-central Thailand, has almost run dry following months without rain. The river was already reported as unseasonally low during April this year.…
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Wild animals and wild flowers – tulip season at the Khon Kaen Zoo
PHOTO: Khon Kaen Zoo Blooming fields of colourful Siam tulips are now competing fort attention with white lions, tigers, orangutan, camels, white rhinoceros and exotic animals at the Khon Kaen Zoo. Th zoo, in Khao Suan Kwang district, has a new seasonal attraction to its collection of wild animals. The combination of wildlife and wild flowers makes for an unbeatable…
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Over a million methamphetamine pills seized in Lampang sting
Original story by Pratheep Nanthaparp And man has been arrested and 1,104,000 methamphetamine pills confiscated following a sting Lampang’s main city area in northern Thailand last Saturday (July 13). Provincial Police Region 5 met with the media yesterday morning (Monday) to explain how undercover police purchased a small quantity of pills from 34 year old Sarayuth Rattanadilok. It was agreed…
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‘Irishman’ nabbed after 11 year overstay in north-east Thailand
PHOTO: Naew Na Nakhon Ratchasima Immigration, along with local tourist police, have arrested an Irishman,Samuel Caleb Birch, who has been on an overstay of 4,192 days. That’s nearly 11 years and six months! According to Naew Na, the man was arrested at a restaurant in Soi Moo Ban Yamo 5, Ban Mai, Nakhon Ratchasima, north-east Thailand. According to his visa, he arrived…
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An 80 million year old carnivorous dinosaur from Thailand identified
PHOTO: Thai PBS A Thai PhD student, studying overseas, has identified some bones of a dinosaur wandering around the mountains of Khon Kaen 80 million years ago. Fossilised bones, unearthed on a mountain in Khon Kaen nearly 30 years ago, have been identified as belonging to a previously unknown carnivorous dinosaur. Thai PBS says the the bones were unearthed on…
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Thailand’s Dengue Fever infections highest in five years
The Thai Bureau of Epidemiology, at the Department of Disease Control, reports that there have been 44,671 cases of dengue fever reported in the country, the highest number in five years, indicating that there have been 67.62 dengue patients in every 100,000 of the Thai population, which is 1.6 times higher than last year. The numbers take into account 2019 up…
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Thai Mekong People’s Network takes on China over Mekong River management
PHOTO: Airpaz Blog Local residents and environmentalists living along the Thai banks of the Mekong River spent the weekend in hot debate with the Chinese Embassy about Beijing’s utilisation and management of the River. While the embassy accused Thai media of spreading false information on China’s development projects in Southeast Asia’s longest rivers, the Thai Mekong People’s Network fought back,…
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