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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Bangkok Bank ATMs to close tonight
PHUKET: All Bangkok Bank ATMs across Thailand will be closed from 6 pm this evening until 4 pm tomorrow (October 9), so that the bank can test the readiness of its cash point system for Y2K. The only exceptions will be in Bangkok, where the ATMs will close at 10 pm, reopening at 4 pm tomorrow. Mongkol Thongprasarn, assistant manager…
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Two arrested after stabbing of foreigner
PHUKET TOWN: A Thai man has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and carrying a concealed one, following a recent brawl in a Phuket Town night spot. During the brawl in the Timber ‘n’ Rock pub in Yaowarat Rd, Irishman Hugo Crawford, 47, was stabbed in the throat and stomach. Mr Crawford has since been discharged from hospital.…
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Hermaphrodite poses problem for prison
BANGKOK (AFP): Prison authorities in Thailand are debating where to house a suspected drugs offender found to possess both male and female sex organs, officers said this afternoon. Police initially sent the 22-year-old to the women’s wing of the jail in the central province of Lop Buri to be held pending trial, but officers there soon began to suspect she…
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Festival flag “may be one for the Guinness Book’
PHUKET TOWN: The Phuket Provincial Administration Organization plans to contact the publishers of the Guinness Book of World Records to see whether a massive yellow flag, made specially for this year’s Vegetarian Festival, is a world record. The flag, which is 9,999 meters long and carries uplifting messages in Thai, may already be seen, running along the roadside from the…
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Gazette sports reporter comes up a champ
PHUKET TOWN: The Gazette’s own sports reporter, Elke Cheong, yesterday beat off all-comers to win the women’s prize in the 1st Phuket Mini-Marathon, run on the streets of Phuket Town. Elke covered the 10-kilometer course in a time of 44:07 minutes, beating Kanlaya Odoom and Jamruensuk Kao-ien to take the overall women’s title. Overall winner of the race was Pawin…
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Minister to wager his life that flying is safe
PHUKET: Thailand’s Minister of Transport and Communications, Suthep Theuksuban, will fly from Bangkok to Haad Yai next Friday. Nothing unusual in that, except that the THAI aircraft in which he will fly will have its computer clocks set to December 31, 1999. During the flight they will tick over to January 1, 2000, to test whether the airline’s jets are…
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Embassy raiders flee, hostages unharmed
BANGKOK (AFP): The siege of the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok ended this afternoon almost as swiftly as it began yesterday, with the five gunmen being flown in a police helicopter to Ratchaburi Province, near the Thai-Myanmar border, where they are reported to have fled into the countryside. On landing, they released Thai Deputy Foreign Minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra and one other…
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Armed group storms Myanmar embassy in Bangkok
BANGKOK (AFP): A group of 12 men armed with grenades and AK-47 assault rifles stormed the embassy of Myanmar (Burma) in central Bangkok just before noon today. Some 20 embassy staff are believed to have been taken hostage or to be trapped in their accommodation in the compound. In a statement faxed from inside the embassy, the group said the…
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Police raid second house full of exotic fish
RAWAI: Police yesterday raided a second house in the Sea Gypsy village in Rawai and recovered more than 1,000 fish of 70 different protected species. The fish were taken to the Phuket Marine Biology Center. As in the previous raid, the police acted after receiving information from Chada Wangboonkong, the specialist head officer of the Phuket Provincial Fisheries Office, who…
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Road accidents kill 10 in one month
PHUKET: Ten people were killed in traffic accidents between July 20 and August 20, according to statistics from the Wachira, Thalang, and Patong government hospitals. Ampaipan Pawawattananusorn of the Phuket Provincial Health Office reported that two of the victims died in car accidents, while the remaining eight died in motorcycle crashes. In the same period, 44 people were injured in…
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Police raid nets protected marine life
RAWAI: Police are trying to identify the owner of a house in the Sea Gypsy village in Rawai after a raid on it revealed 18 tanks containing 19 pieces of live coral, 130 sea anemones, and more than 2,000 fish of protected species. Pol Col Sati Malakanont, superintendent of Chalong Police Station, told the Gazette that the house was raided…
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Tong trial adjourned as witness fails to appear
PHUKET TOWN: The trial of five men accused in the June 1997 murder of American Danis Wayne Tong was adjourned again today after a witness failed to appear. Two witnesses were scheduled to testify for the prosecution, but only one attended the court. The defense argued that since the testimony of the two witnesses was in relation to the same…
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Tourists witness murder of tuk-tuk driver
PHUKET TOWN: A horrified group of Western tourists watched helplessly as their tuk-tuk driver was shot dead by a hit-man in the road outside The Metropole hotel in Phuket Town on Saturday night. Prasit Petchkong, 56, from Phattalung province, had just picked up the group when two men on a black Honda Dream motorcycle with no license plates stopped nearby.…
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New Governor flies in tomorrow
PHUKET TOWN: Phuket’s new Governor, Charnchai Soontharamut, will arrive in Phuket tomorrow. He will be met at the airport by the province’s vice-governors and members of the local civil service before being whisked away on a tour of the island. But conspicuously absent from the airport greeting will be 60 of Phuket’s top movers and shakers. They leave tonight on…
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Phuket wins “Most Idyllic Island’ award
PHUKET: Condé Nast Traveller, one of the world’s premier consumer magazines, has named Phuket “Most idyllic island in the world” following a survey of its readers. Phuket came ahead of Pangkor Laut in Malaysia, Hawaii, Sardinia, Tobago in the Caribbean, Bali and Koh Samui.
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Thai wins country’s first surfing contest
KATA BEACH: Chalong Tonaus, 24, is no longer just a lad from Phitsanulok working as a beach boy in Patong. On Sunday, he became the first surfing champion in Thailand. Chalong was elated by his victory over some 50 other surfers in the Quicksilver Phuket Surfing Contest, organised by Aloha Surf Sports in cooperation with the Tourist Authority of Thailand…
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Patong may be first beach to have lifeguards
KATHU: Pol. Col. Kokiat Wongvorachart, Superintendent of Kathu Police Station, told the Gazette this morning that his unit is sponsoring two new tourist safety projects for the coming high season in Patong. The proposals are currently awaiting approval from the Ministry of Interior in Bangkok. Khun Kokiat says he is optimistic that approval, along with the required budget allocations, will…
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Rough seas for software pirate
BANGKOK (AFP) – A Thai-Japanese engineering firm has paid the largest ever out-of-court settlement in southeast Asia for the use of pirated software, a software industry alliance announced this morning. “This settlement sends a very clear warning: using pirated software carries high risks and will result in severe financial penalties,” said Heuy Tan of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) in…
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Phuket Town has “best police station in the South’
PHUKET TOWN: The Phuket Town Police Station has won a special award for being the best police station in southern Thailand, beating 111 other police stations in the seven provinces that comprise Police Region 8. The citation came as part of a nationwide drive by the Ministry of Interior to improve police operations in Thailand. Police stations were evaluated on…
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Qantas 747 accident closes airport runway
BANGKOK (AFP): One runway at Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport was closed today after a jet belonging to the Australian airline Qantas ploughed off the end of it while landing in heavy rain last night. None of the 410 passengers and crew aboard the plane was seriously injured, a Qantas spokeswoman said, but the Boeing 747 sustained damage to the nose,…
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Appeal for help in dugong preservation drive
PHUKET TOWN: The Phuket Provincial Forestry Office has issued an appeal for people to help in a national survey of dugong. The aim is to preserve these slow-moving, vegetarian, marine mammals. Dugongs are one of the 15 species of animals protected by Thai law, but their numbers have diminished significantly over the past few years, partly because of destruction of…
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Fruit seller charged with rape of child
PHUKET TOWN: A 53-year-old man has been arrested by Phuket Town police and charged with the repeated rape of a 13-year-old girl. The man was arrested after a Patong Beach food seller reported that her daughter had been raped a number of times by the man, a fruit merchant in the Patong area. The daughter told police that she had…
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Taiwan businessman robbed of a million baht
PHUKET TOWN: Police are investigating the theft on Saturday or Sunday of more than a million baht from a visiting Taiwanese businessman. The businessman, Ho Min Sun, 56, came to Phuket with his son and two friends to buy tuna for export to restaurants in Taiwan. All four stayed in the Daeng Plaza Hotel on Phang-Nga Rd. When he checked…
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Police “know who Supercheap killers are’
PHUKET TOWN: Police believe they now know the identities of the two men involved in the recent Supercheap murder-robbery, but are compiling more forensic and witness evidence before they can move to arrest them. Pol Col Chalit Thintanee, superintendent of Phuket Town Police Station told the Gazette that he and his men are currently awaiting the results of forensic tests…
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Factory explosion kills 22, injures dozens more
CHIANG MAI, (AFP): At least 22 people were killed and dozens injured this morning when an explosion destroyed a Taiwanese-owned fruit factory in San Pa Tong, northern Chiang Mai province, police said. All of the victims were Thai. The blast ripped through a longan processing plant while 30 people were working in it. Bodies and charred equipment lay in the…
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Skal Golf event raises 125,000 baht for charity
CHERNG TALAY: The Skal Club held a highly successful golf tournament on Wednesday at the Banyan Tree Golf Club, raising 125,000 baht for charity. Forty-six golfers took part. A total of 65,000 baht was raised on the golf course, plus 4,000 baht from the dinner at the Whispering Cock pub following the tournament, 42,000 baht in an auction, and 18,000…
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Local team in shock defeat of national side
PHUKET TOWN: A scratch soccer team made up of players from Phuket and Chumphon beat Thailand’s national under-17 team 1-0 on Thursday, with a last-minute goal at the Saphan Hin stadium. The loss was a blow for the national squad, who are the Asian champions in their age group, and who preparing for the Under-17 Football World Championships in Napier,…
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Court told how Tong murder suspects were arrested
PHUKET TOWN: A senior policeman gave evidence in court today about the circumstances surrounding the arrests of four of the five people charged in connection with the 1997 murder of American businessman Danis Wayne Tong. On trial for the murder are Thais Manit Panme, Pratin Praktong, Prajuab Sukkong and Pairat Raksawong, and Belgian Hugo Vandervelde. Prosecution witness Pol Maj Sian…
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Film to be screened free to dodge censorship
BANGKOK (AFP): Organizers of the Bangkok Film Festival refused today to cut scenes from a controversial Dutch film and said they would hold free screenings in order to avoid violating a censorship law passed in the 1930s. Festival director Brian Bennett said he had been told by police that the film “Jesus was a Palestinian” would have to be cancelled…
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Microsoft battles to fix “very dangerous” bug
SEATTLE: Microsoft Corp is rushing to create a patch for flaws in its Internet Explorer web browser, versions 4 and 5, and in Outlook 98. These flaws allow anyone who has a website, or who can send email in HTML format, to upload instructions to the victim’s computer. Phuket-based computer expert Michael Jenselius said: “Anybody can do it through a…
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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