Phuket Fishing Port to reopen tomorrow

The Phuket Fishing Port on Koh Siray will reopen tomorrow. Officials performed a mass cleaning of the port yesterday ahead of the reopening. The port had been closed for 2 weeks after a Covid outbreak from fisherman who had come ashore following a period of weather that rendered them unable to catch fish.

Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew scrutinised the cleaning yesterday alongside Phuket Fishery Association President Somyot Wongboonyakul

The governor says Phuket has 17 fishing piers registered to the Department of fisheries, but only 10 of the piers are being used to haul fish ashore. The rest of the piers are for mooring. He adds that 10,000 tonnes of seafood are brought ashore each year using the piers. Narong went on to say that the haul of seafood that comes through Phuket’s fishing piers has been valued at nearly 4.5 billion baht.

“We have 352 fishing boats with 3,159 people working on the boats. Among the workers, 1,428 are Thais, and 1,731 are from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. We also have about 400 people working on the piers,” says Narong.

The governor adds that after officials from the Phuket Public Health Office conducted a proactive screening and discovered many seamen had been infected but were asymptomatic, they set up a storehouse as a community isolation centre. The centre contains 150 beds that currently has 120 workers staying in the venue. He also says there is a total of 178 workers staying on 18 boats as part of a “vessel isolation”. He says of the 178 fishermen, 36 have tested positive for Covid and the rest are healthy but volunteered to stay on the boats.

The association president says the situation on the pier may be back to normal on September 6.

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SOURCE: The Phuket News