South Thailand News

Southern Thailand news, Phuket news, Koh Samui news, and Krabi updates—stay informed on business, tourism, and local events from Trang, Songkhla, Yala, and beyond. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted Southern Thailand news source.

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    How to reduce out-of-pocket medical expenses in Thailand?

    Managing medical expenses in Thailand is important as healthcare costs continue to rise. The country’s healthcare system includes both public and private options, but even with the Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS) for citizens, many still face high out-of-pocket medical expenses....

  • Gunfire exchange kills alleged drug dealer, injures 3 police

    Gunfire exchange kills alleged drug dealer, injures 3 police

    An alleged drug dealer was killed and 3 police officers were injured in a gunfire exchange this morning. Police say 46 year old Udom Rattanamanee, who was killed, and his wife Areeya Panthip were allegedly major drug dealers in Phuket. Around 8am this morning, police went to Udom’s house in the southern province Nakhon Si Thammarat with arrest warrants for…

  • 60 Surat Thani women report their photos posted online soliciting sex

    60 Surat Thani women report their photos posted online soliciting sex

    Dozens of women from southern villages in Surat Thani found photos of themselves shared online with messages soliciting prostitution. 1 woman says her Facebook account was hacked and messages offering sexual services were sent from her personal account. Chai Buri district police say 60 women reported their photos being used online with what looked like personal messages from them offering…

  • Songkhla fisherman found murdered in lake house

    Songkhla fisherman found murdered in lake house

    A man in the southern Songkhla province was shot dead at a house on stilts in the middle of Songkhla Lake in the small hours of this morning. A Singha Nakhon police duty officer says he was informed of the incident at about 3:40am. Officers were sent to the scene to investigate. Police found the body of the man lying…

  • Surat Thani forest ranger found dead

    Surat Thani forest ranger found dead

    A member of the local forest patrol, who had gone missing after his boat struck a stump near the Ratchaprapha dam in the southern province of Surat Thani, was found dead yesterday. Thanakorn Chana-aksorn, from the Khlong Ya forest protection unit, is suspected to have suffered head injuries from the impact of the crash and subsequently drowned in the incident…

  • 2 Koh Tao divers awarded for their involvement in the 2018 cave rescue

    2 Koh Tao divers awarded for their involvement in the 2018 cave rescue

    2 foreign diving instructors in Koh Tao were honored for their role in rescuing the 13 young men from the flooded Tham Luang cave in Chiang Rai back in 2018. More than 100 foreigners involved in the rescue have been granted the Most Admirable Order of Direkgunabhorn, an award granted by the Thai Monarch. A ceremony in Surat Thani was…

  • Police seize 2 million baht worth of illegal cosmetics

    Police seize 2 million baht worth of illegal cosmetics

    A 43 year old man was arrested for allegedly producing makeup and packaging it at his home in Hat Yai, Southern Thailand. Police also confiscated about 2 million baht worth of the illegal cosmetics. Both police and health officials gained information about a home in Hat Yai that was allegedly producing and packaging cosmetics for an unregistered brand. When police…

  • Thai immigration police arrest foreigners with fake IDs

    Thai immigration police arrest foreigners with fake IDs

    Thai immigration officials have arrested 2 Pakistani men who were using fake Thai identification cards. Now the officers have opened an investigation to see if more foreigners might be connected to the case and are living in Thailand with a fake ID. Immigration officials in Pattani, in the far south of Thailand, were recently tipped off about a foreigner with…

  • Murder suspect captured after motorbike crash

    Murder suspect captured after motorbike crash

    Police in the southern province of Surat Thani say a man with 3 arrest warrants, 1 each for for murder, attempted murder and robbery, was caught after a motorcycle incident in the early hours of this morning in the city’s central district. The Surat Thani police chief said that at about 12.10am a motorcycle ran off the road at a…

  • Pattani company turns marine debris into new shoes

    Pattani company turns marine debris into new shoes

    Flip flops, sandals, thongs, whatever you want to call them, are often seen washed up on beaches along with plastic bags and bottles. Those old, forgotten shoes are being transformed into new flip flops by a Pattani company called Tlejourn, a Thai phrase meaning “wandering across the sea.” Using old sandals found on the beach, Tlejourn cleans and shreds them…

  • Nakhon Si Thammarat crash kills 3, including pregnant woman

    Nakhon Si Thammarat crash kills 3, including pregnant woman

    3 people are dead, including a pregnant woman, and another suffered severe injuries after a sedan and a pickup truck collided head-on in the Cha-uat district of the southern Nakhon Si Thammarat province last night. Police say the fatal crash happpened about 6:30pm in front of the PT petrol station in tambon Bantoon. Both vehicles, an Isuzu pickup and a…

  • Feud between rival Surat Thani families kills 1, injures 3

    Feud between rival Surat Thani families kills 1, injures 3

    A violent altercation between 2 feuding families has left 1 man dead and another 3 injured, in the southern province of Surat Thani. A report in Nation Thailand says that following reports of a confrontation at a property in the sub-district of Bang Sawan, police arrived at the house to find the body of a man named only as Jaran.…

  • Surat Thani murder suspect nabbed after 12 years

    Surat Thani murder suspect nabbed after 12 years

    The prime suspect in a Surat Thani murder investigation has been arrested after 12 years on the run, in the western Kanchanaburi province. Police from the Crime Suppression Division arrested 77 year old Sakol Wichaidit today, in the parking lot in front of Sangkhlaburi Hospital. He was subseqently transferred to central district police station in Surat Thani. The arrest follows…

  • 4 suspected insurgents shot dead in Pattani

    4 suspected insurgents shot dead in Pattani

    Further to a story published yesterday by The Thaiger, a total of 4 suspected insurgents are now reported to have been shot dead in separate firefights in the southern Pattani province on Friday evening and Saturday morning, as security forces close in on a fifth suspect. The first clash followed an earlier gunfight in which 3 soldiers were wounded while…

  • Toddler, locked in hot van, dies after 4 day coma

    Toddler, locked in hot van, dies after 4 day coma

    A 2 year old boy is dead after 4 days in a coma, due to being left in a hot van outside a daycare centre in the southern Nakhon Si Thammarat province. Staff at Maharaj Nakhon Si Thammarat Hospital confirmed the death of Thanakit “Nong Kongbin” Yodmanee yesterday afternoon, saying his organs failed. The boy was taken to hospital on…

  • 2 year old in ICU after being left in scorching school van

    2 year old in ICU after being left in scorching school van

    A 2 year old boy remains on life support after he was left alone in a sweltering hot school van outside a childcare centre in southern Thailand. Thanakit “Nong Kongbin’’ Yodmanee is being treated in an ICU at a Hospital in Nakhon Si Thammarat. He was rushed to the hospital earlier in the week after he was found unconscious in…

  • 2 bombing suspects dead, 3 soldiers wounded in Pattani shootout

    2 bombing suspects dead, 3 soldiers wounded in Pattani shootout

    2 suspected insurgents allegedly involved in Thursday’s bombings in Pattani’s Nongjik district, which killed 2 security officers and injured 3 others, were killed in a shootout yesterday in the southern province’s Yaring district. 3 more soldiers were wounded. The clash erupted in Buenaejuerae village in tambon Kolam where a combined team of soldiers, police and local officials were patrolling, according…

  • Crane, “toppled by ghosts,” destroys southern wat – VIDEO

    Crane, “toppled by ghosts,” destroys southern wat – VIDEO

    A boom crane toppled in the southern Nakhon Si Thammarat province yesterday, taking down a wat ‘temple’ that it sat atop, along with its crematorium. Temple officials had hired a contractor to dissasemble the structure, because they’d already outlaid 3 million baht to build a new one nearby. But they couldn’t take down the shrine before removing its towering smokestack.…

  • 1 drowned, another missing in storm off Nakhon Si Thammarat

    1 drowned, another missing in storm off Nakhon Si Thammarat

    A tourist has drowned and a 63 year old man remains missing, presumed drowned, after a tour boat capsized during a sudden rainstorm in Thong Nian Bay, off Khanom district in Nakhon Si Thammarat yesterday. The incident happened around 3pm when a sudden storm, over-turning the boat and dropping everyone in the water. A search was quickly organised after the…

  • Air Asia and VietJet add some extra domestic routes

    Air Asia and VietJet add some extra domestic routes

    Whilst much of the world waits to get back into Thailand, the local airlines are starting to flex their domestic muscles and add new routes. Thai AirAsia is launching 2 new routes from Chiang Mai, starting yesterday, offering a one-way fare for as low as 790 baht on flights to Hua Hin, and Udon Thani in the northeast. The cheapie…

  • Proposal would lift emergency decree in 4 southern districts

    Proposal would lift emergency decree in 4 southern districts

    Thailand’s 4th Army plans to seek approval for the Executive Decree for Administration in Emergency Situations to be lifted in 4 southern districts, according to an army spokesman. The districts have been free of insurgency activities for a considerable time, and Pattani’s Mai Kaen district is likely to be the first to see the relaxation, the spokesman said today. The…

  • 1 soldier wounded in Narathiwat ambush

    1 soldier wounded in Narathiwat ambush

    A soldier in the southern Narathiwat province was injured in an ambush in Bacho district last night, according to police. The attack happened at about 10:30pm while 56 year old Serm Seedaeng, leader of a civic action team of the 2nd Rifle Battalion at Chulabhorn military camp in the province’s central district, was driving his pickup along Bacho-Ban Thon road…

  • US soldiers, concertgoers all test negative for Covid-19

    US soldiers, concertgoers all test negative for Covid-19

    All 110 US soldiers visiting Bangkok for upcoming joint military exercises have tested negative for Covid-19. Dr Taweesin Visanuyothin, spokesperson for the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, says all are staying at alternative state quarantine locations and are strictly prohibited from leaving their rooms or interacting with the general public. The soldiers’ arrival caused concern and discussion on social media,…

  • Psychiatric patient stabs sister to death at family home in southern Thailand

    Psychiatric patient stabs sister to death at family home in southern Thailand

    A man undergoing psychiatric treatment after prolonged drug use has stabbed his sister to death in the southern province of Songkhla. The man’s family say he was being treated at Rajanagarindra Psychiatric Hospital, but on the day of the murder he’d been told by his doctor to rest at home. The man has been named as 39 year old Boonya…

  • Stormy weather wreaks havoc, destroys homes, in southern Thailand

    Stormy weather wreaks havoc, destroys homes, in southern Thailand

    The current stormy conditions have caused severe damage to a number of homes in the southern province of Surat Thani, with some villagers left homeless. At one property in the Phra Sang district, the roof and garage have collapsed, with the 45 year old homeowner, Rachan Churak, having to flea the property with his family. Rachan says the damage occurred…