Phuket News
Discover the latest news and updates from Thailand’s most famous and beautiful island, The Thaiger’s hometown, having previously operated as the Phuket Gazette.
Our team brings you breaking news, in-depth analysis, and exclusive stories from Phuket, covering everything from local politics and business to lifestyle and tourism. Learn about the island’s stunning beaches, vibrant nightlife, and thriving expat community, as well as keeping updated on events, and attractions.
The Thaiger is your ultimate guide to staying connected with Phuket’s ever-evolving landscape. To keep up with the most reliable news source on the island, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media.
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Sponsored 5 hidden healthcare costs in Thailand and how to avoid them
Thailand's healthcare system is affordable and supported by the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) scheme, offering essential services to most citizens. However, hidden healthcare costs can surprise patients and lead to unexpected expenses. These include specialist fees, insurance gaps, emergency services,...
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Burmese crew’s mutiny-murder run ends in Phuket
PHUKET: A mutinous Burmese fishing crewman has confessed to Phuket Police that he hacked to death the ship’s “cruel” Thai captain before attacking the vessel’s technician, who jumped overboard and is presumed dead.The crew of seven Burmese were found yesterday aboard the fishing vessel Wor Suphaporn, stranded off Mai Thon island.“Nud”, 25, confessed to Phuket Police that on October 12…
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FC Phuket take on Customs United tomorrow
PHUKET: Following a two-week break from league play, FC Phuket will host Samut Prakan Customs United (SCU) tomorrow (Sunday) at Surakul Stadium in Phuket Town. Kickoff is scheduled for 6pm. The last time these two teams met was in May, when they played to a 2-2 draw in Samut Prakan. Based on season stats, the odds look to favor Phuket.…
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Phuket rain hampers towers of power move
PHUKET: The heavy rains across Phuket this week continue to hamper efforts to replace power poles leaning dangerously on Patong Hill. The poles were undermined by a mudslide on October 5 following days of incessant downpours. The Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) Phuket office has been attempting to replace the poles. The current plan is to have the poles removed by…
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Phuket Governor transfer rumors “unconfirmed’
PHUKET: The Governor’s Office today said they could neither confirm nor deny rumors that Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha will be transferred out of the province this month. “Our office has yet to be informed of any transfer orders regarding the governor or his deputies,” Manas Nurak, personal secretary to Governor Tri, told the Phuket Gazette. “The central government in Bangkok…
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Phuket woman takes life by hanging
PHUKET: In the second suicide by hanging in Phuket in three days, the body of a local woman was found suspended by the neck from a tree near her home in Thalang this morning. Tah Chat Chai Police were notified of a suicide on Soi Nai Yang 3, opposite Wat Nai Yang in Sakoo, at about dawn today. When they…
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Landslide on Phuket bypass road causes serious damage
PHUKET: Another landslide on the bypass road last night caused over one million baht in damage to stock at the Adisak Trading Company warehouse in Phuket, which was due to be cleared of stock today. Warehouse chief clerk Natthaphum Ongsala, 28, said the landslide breached the warehouse roof and wall, destroying a wide range of stock including buckets of thinner,…
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Phuket Prison warden hangs himself
PHUKET: A guilt-ridden warden at Phuket Provincial Prison took his life by hanging yesterday evening. Phuket Prison chief Rapin Nichanon identified the deceased as 52-year-old Suwit Srisangthong, who lived in a home for government workers on the prison grounds. When friends went to wake Mr Suwit for work yesterday morning, they found him hanging by the neck from a ceiling…
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Phuket Blues Fest moves to Laguna
PHUKET: The Phuket International Blues Rock Festival this year will be held at Laguna Phuket for the first time in the event’s seven-year history. “With 1,300 hotel rooms and a large expat village in the immediate neighborhood, as well as easy access from anywhere in the north of the island, Laguna is the perfect place to stage such an event,”…
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Patong disaster officers launch flood-relief campaign
PHUKET: The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) office at Patong Municipality today launched a campaign to collect donations of flood relief items from people living in Patong and along Phuket’s west coast. Donations of any essential items, such as dried canned food, rice, clothes and cash, are welcome, an officer at the DDPM Patong office told the Phuket…
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Phuket boy, 9, tops EU contest
PHUKET: A nine-year-old Phuket student was yesterday honored with a personal visit from David Lipman, the Head of the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Thailand. The occasion was to mark young Suthipat Suwanrathpum being selected as one of the 14 winners in a drawing competition held by EuropeAid to highlight gender equality. The drawing by Suthipat, also known…
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Phuket firestarter bamboozles police
PHUKET: The cause of a fire in an uninhabited Phuket shop-house this morning remains unknown, with police saying it was not a short circuit. No one was injured in the fire. The blaze started at about 8:30am on the second floor of a two-storey shophouse in Thalang – about 100 meters from the Heroines’ Monument towards Pa Khlok. The second…
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Phuket prisoners plunge into fight against floods
PHUKET: Inmates at Phuket Provincial Prison were dispatched to Thalang over the past two days to clear canals of overgrowth and to improve drainage in flood-affected areas of Pa Khlok. Armed with sickles and under close observation by prison wardens, more than 30 inmates with ‘good behavior’ records took part in the operation, which helped ease the suffering of residents…
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More landslides strike Phuket
PHUKET: Two more small landslides were reported in Phuket’s Rassada subdistrict yesterday, one causing a temporary road closure and the other damaging the wall of a hillside residential estate. The first slide hit on Monday night the Ban Thepkrasattri housing estate just south of Mission Hospital on Thepkrasattri Road inbound, damaging a five-meter section at the base of a retaining…
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Phuket meth users hooked by cosmetic claims
PHUKET: Crystal meth dealers in Phuket are attracting new users by claiming the drug has cosmetic benefits. Doctors say that although the stimulant may cause some changes in a user’s physical appearance, it is far from the desired effect. Concerned about a rise in the use of ya ice (crystal methamphetamine) in Phuket and nearby provinces, police and health officials…
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Iranian Actress sentenced to 90 lashes for role in Australian film
Phuket NEWS Hound – World news selected by Phuket Gazette editors for Phuket’s international communitySydney Morning Herald An Iranian actress has been sentenced to one year in prison and 90 lashes for her role in an Australian film, media reports said on Tuesday, days after a student activist was lashed 74 times for insulting the country’s president. Marzieh Vafamehr was…
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Rains, landslides cause B100mn in damage to Phuket roads
PHUKET: The ongoing downpours that continue to plague the island have caused 100 million baht in damage to Phuket roads, Governor Tri Augkaradacha revealed today. The news came as Governor Tri today ordered Phuket’s three District Chiefs to take precautionary measures to protect people in their respective areas from floods and landslides. “Because of the floods and landslides that have…
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Phuket Live Wire : TrueMove-H: New kid on the wireless block
PHUKET: Last week in Live Wire I talked about finding a good wireless Internet service provider. At the time I didn’t have enough first-hand experience with the new True wireless system, called TrueMove-H, to give you a definitive opinion about the service. Now I have a week of “3G+” under my belt, and the results are good, but not great.…
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Phuket gets ready for the Banana Walk
PHUKET: Patong Beach Hotel Ltd – owners of the Patong Beach Hotel and Banana Disco – today announced the opening of a “new-lifestyle” shopping center in Patong, on Phuket’s west coast. The news follows the developer breaking ground last week for the Banana Walk shopping mall, scheduled to open in May next year. The complex will be located along Thaweewong…
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Training tips for the Phuket Triathlon
PHUKET: For most triathletes swimming seems to be the most demanding technical aspect of the three disciplines. I remember my first triathlon. I was very nervous about the swim start, about being in the open water and I was not sure how to manage swimming in a straight line. It took a while to become an experienced open water swimmer.…
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Illegal dam bursts, mudslide hits Phuket housing estate
PHUKET: Continuing rains across Phuket last night caused a mudslide that forced the evacuation of a residential estate in Rassada. There was considerable property damage, but no injuries were reported. After another night of heavy rain, the mudslide hit the Baan Natkamon estate at about 3am. The first home inundated with flowing mud was that of Opas Chupan, whose unit…
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Phuket’s Young gunning for India
PHUKET: Atlantic Racing Team driver Dylan Young from Phuket proved his worth to sponsors and other supporters with a superb drive at the JK Racing Asia Series in Singapore recently. Young finished Race One in 8th place and Race Two in 6th position, which gave the 22-year-old a double-points scoring finish for the weekend. Under lights at the Singtel Singapore…
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Swedish expat dies on notorious Phuket coastal road
PHUKET: A Swedish expat who ran a Phuket guesthouse died on Saturday in a motorbike accident in Karon on Saturday. Patong Police received a report that a “tourist” crashed his motorcycle and died on Patak Road in Karon early Saturday morning. Peter Nyman, 48, died when he overshot a curve on his motorcycle in heavy rain and struck a power…
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Phuket landslide update: Ongoing concern over road stability
PHUKET: One westbound lane of the road over Patong Hill will remain closed to traffic indefinitely as authorities survey the damage of a recent landslide and draw up plans to stabilize the slope before the situation worsens. Phuket Provincial Highways Office chief Arun Sanae today told the Phuket Gazette, “We are now co-ordinating with Kathu and Patong municipalities to fix…
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Phuket Police to send body of fallen tourist to Bangkok
PHUKET: Police will send the body of an Australian tourist to Bangkok for forensic examination in order to rule out any foul play in his fatal fall from a Phuket balcony over the weekend. Friends of the late Dean McKeon were questioned by Patong Police today about the events leading up to the discovery of his body in the car…
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Phuket dinghies join flood relief effort
PHUKET: Five rubber dinghies loaded with safety equipment left Phuket this morning for the flood-ravaged central plains, where they will assist in transporting goods and passengers until the situation there returns to normal. Four of the vessels are on loan from the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) Region 5 office in Phuket, and are operated by that agency’s…
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Mystery surrounds Aussie death plunge in Phuket
PHUKET: An Australian tourist on holiday in Phuket died over the weekend after falling off a hotel balcony in Patong. It is believed he was sleepwalking at the time. The story broke in the Thai press by Manager Online news site, which identified the deceased as 33-year-old Dean William McKeon. The site also posted graphic images of the late Mr…
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Thailand Floods: A Phuket view of the damage in a nutshell
PHUKET: Severe flooding has wreaked havoc and caused enormous damage across Thailand. Although Phuket is not among the 28 provinces currently on the radar of the national government’s new flood crisis ‘War Room’, monsoon rains are an ongoing threat here, despite the hiatus so far today. The damage nationally: 30 provinces in all regions except the South (where Phuket lies)…
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Construction worker drowns in Phuket klong
PHUKET: A construction worker trying to catch fish drowned in a fast-moving klong in Phuket’s Thalang District this afternoon. Thalang Police identified the deceased as 51-year-old Sawai Suksabai, a resident of Sukhothai province. Police were notified of the drowning by the victim’s friend, Soonthorn Nopsawan. The two men set out with a net to trap fish in the swollen waters…
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Special report: Phuket foreigners losing homes to con men
PHUKET: Phuket homeowners are a prime target for regional fraud gangs that leave their “marks” heartbroken and penniless, with wives of wealthy foreigners often falling victim. Reports of people being cheated out of tens of millions of baht in such scams are rife on the island, but the victims are often too ashamed to come forward to warn others. Under…
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Phuket crash uproots tree, two slightly injured
PHUKET: Two people were injured in Phuket this afternoon when the driver of a pickup truck lost control on the bypass road, hit a tree on the median strip and collided with a sedan heading in the opposite direction. The accident occurred at about 2pm on the stretch of the bypass road in front of the Premium Outlet Mall in…
Phuket is a province in the south of Thailand. Phuket's beaches face the Andaman Sea allowing the west coast beaches fantastic sunsets right throughout the year. If you're looking for news in Phuket, go to thethaiger.com/phuket Or follow our instant news in our Facebook pages.
The good news is that Phuket is famous for its foodie scene with an enormously diverse range of local and international foods - Phuket and southern favorites, street food along with international choices catering for the 12 million visitors to the island each year. Thaiger follows Phuket news and information 24 hours a day with regular updates.
Phuket is only 'just' an island with a 300 metre bridge linking it to Thailand's mainland. We're always reporting in the news that the channel beneath is frequently dredged to maintain Phuket's status as an island. On the other side of Sarasin Bridge is the Province of Phang Nga.
Getting to Phuket is easy as the island has land, air and sea connections. Phuket is also used as a take-off point for local island trips as Thailand's largest island is surrounded by over 30 pristine islands. Koh Phi Phi and the famous Maya Bay are always in the news and would be the best known of the island's just off Phuket's shores.
Phuket is an island and a province. It's the largest island in Thailand – 48 km north to south, 21 km east to west.
It's about 20% smaller, in area, than Singapore but much less densely populated. Whilst the island nation of Singapore boasts a population of nearly 6 million, Phuket has a permanent population of around 400-450,000 (but varies a lot with the influx of tourists and a workforce that is always changing). Most of Phuket remains jungle and tropical rainforest despite an acceleration of development over the past 20 years.
Unlike some of Thailand's other popular islands (that are in the Gulf of Thailand), the news is that Phuket is located in the Andaman Sea.
Phuket is 878 km north of the equator.
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