B10m tsunami archive to be established
NAI YANG: Some 200 government officers from Bangkok and the six tsunami-affected provinces gathered at the Pearl Village Hotel yesterday to offer suggestions of what data should be included in the Tsunami Information Center (TIC), which will be built in Bangkok at a cost of 10 million baht.
The hearing was organized by the National Archives of Thailand (NAT), operated under the Fine Arts Department, which will consider the input before deciding on the data to be kept as part of the archive.
Historical Contemporary Record officer Sureerat Wongsa-ngiem said the archive will cover five aspects of the tsunami: what happened during the tsunami, how victims were helped, the damage caused, the post-tsunami recovery process, and measures introduced to protect the region from future tsunamis.
“The [TIC] will be built in Bangkok. The government has already approved a budget of 10 million baht. The money hasn’t arrived yet, but when it does, we will start to build the TIC,” K. Sureerat said.
Construction of the TIC is due to start next month.
K. Sureerat added that Phuket Rajabhat University has been helping collect information from local people.
“The NAT has been accumulating information about the tsunami since January, and we expect to continue doing this until September,” she said.
