Trees to act as “tsunami breaks’

PHUKET: Trees may be planted along the Andaman Coast to give some protection to the land from future tsunamis, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Yongyuth Tiyapairat said this weekend.

The Minister, on a visit to Phuket, said that buildings that had been sheltered from the sea by trees, particularly casuarinas, appeared to have suffered much less damage during the tsunami than those that had not.

Officials from the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources are now surveying the Andaman coastline and procuring trees that could be planted as natural “tsunami breaks”.

K. Yongyuth added, however, that the decision as to which trees should be planted should take into account their appropriateness for the surroundings.