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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Off-duty volunteer ranger shot and killed in Narathiwat
An off-duty territorial defence volunteer was shot and killed in Narathiwat, a province in Thailand’s “Deep South” near the Malaysian border with ongoing violence due to the religious separatist insurgency. The volunteer, Madrusli Kolae, was killed around 6:15pm yesterday as he was going home on his motorcycle after playing football at a field in the Chanae district. Witnesses say they…
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Betong Airport in Yala is almost ready to be southernmost Airport
Thailand’s southernmost province is set to open Thailand’s southernmost airport as the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand is nearing completion of safety inspections for Betong International Airport in Yala province. The CAAT is doing safety and security inspections now, which will be followed by a license and certification that will allow commercial flights to operate in and out of the…
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Nakhon Si Thammarat man arrested for allegedly possessing 2 illegal firearms
Today, a man in the Southern Thai province of Nakhon Si Thammarat was arrested after police searched his dwelling and located 2 firearms. Serm Kwannimit, the deputy provincial police chief, says, officers were responding to information that military-grade weapons were being sold at 20 year old Teeradet “Bang Jack” Chuhai’s house. Police found an AK-47 assault rifle and a 9mm…
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Heavy rain causes flash flood in Surat Thani
Raging currents of flood swept away the roof of a shop at Surat Thani province. Due to heavy rain, water from the Nuea Khlong waterfall flowed down the mountain yesterday, flooding some houses in Wiang Sa District. Southern parts of Thailand get by far the most rain, with around 2,400 millimeters every year, compared with the central and northern regions…
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Koh Lipe enacts 1 month lockdown restrictions from tomorrow
After a new outbreak of Covid-19, Koh Lipe will become the latest Thai destination to go into semi-lockdown and harsh restrictions including a curfew. The governor of Lipe’s province Satun has ordered a month-long near lockdown beginning August 9 and ending September 5. The order, officially titled Satun Province 1482/2564 on preventative measures and control of Coronavirus disease 2019, comes…
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Songkhla Birthday beach party busted
Recently, police in the Southern Thai province of Songkhla arrested 61 people at a birthday beach party. Reportedly, 35 suspects were minors. The birthday, which was thrown in the middle of the night, took place on the beach and included loud music and alcohol, says Thai media. Despite arresting 61 people, police suspect more people were present but managed to…
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Songkhla beach party sees 61 arrested violating Covid-19 rules
A reckless birthday beach party in Songkhla in violation of several Covid-19 restrictions resulted in 61 arrests, half of which were underage. Songkhla is a dark red zone, where any gathering with alcohol is prohibited and non-alcoholic gatherings are limited to a maximum of 5 people. Last night on Wang Nao Beach in Nath Thap sub-district of Songkhla, 61 people…
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Volunteer ranger killed in grenade attack by suspected insurgents
A volunteer ranger was killed in a grenade attack by suspected insurgents at a Thai army camp in Narathiwat, a province in Thailand’s Deep South near the Malaysian border with ongoing violence related to the religious separatist insurgency. Four soldiers at the makeshift base were injured in the attack. The army set up a small camp along the Sungai Kolok…
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Covid outbreak closes Nakhon Si Thammarat rubberwood processing factory
A rubberwood processing factory in Nakhon Si Thammarat, a southern Thai province, has been ordered closed for 14 days (reopening on August 7) following 221 workers testing positive for Covid, says the provincial communicable disease committee, today. The majority of the cases, 166, were reported today. All of the workers will be tested, soon. The committee says 2 field hospitals…
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Car crash kills 2 in Songkhla, police investigate
A car crash in southern Thailand’s Songkhla province has killed 2 people. The couple sailed their car off the road and into a canal off a main highway, yesterday afternoon. Vivorn Khunkaew, who works as an investigator for the Thepha police stations, says the car accident happened around 4 pm yesterday, close to the Moo 2 village in tambon Pag…
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Pattani bomb and gun attack injures 5 police in their truck
In the southern province of Pattani, where insurgency activity often erupts in violence and damage, an attack has left 5 police officers wounded. The incident yesterday afternoon involved gunfire and a bombing as police officers were attacked in their car. The preliminary reports believe that the police officers were responding to a call for backup support around 4:30 pm. They…
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2 suspected drug cartel leaders arrested in Surat Thani and Phuket
2 suspected drug cartel leaders whose operations were based in Europe were arrested in the southern provinces of Surat Thani and Phuket this morning. The suspects are Alek Karun, of German/Russian origin and Alexander Wolfien, a German national, says immigration Bureau chief Sompong Chingduang Alek was arrested at a luxury villa on the island of Koh Phangan, in the Surat…
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30-day curfew for Songkhla following a surge in Covid-19 cases
Officials in Songkhla have announced a 30-day curfew in an effort to fight a surge of Covid-19 infections in the southern province. According to a Bangkok Post report, the provincial communicable disease committee has confirmed the curfew, which came into effect last night and is in place until July 29. Governor Jaruwat Kliangklao says residents must remain home between the…
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Woman killed while trying to cross the road in Nakhon Si Thammarat
A woman was hit by a car while she was crossing the road in the Na Bon district of Nakhon Si Thammarat this morning, says police. Veerayuth Rakthai, a police chief investigator says the victim was a Myanmar national identified as 54 year old “Chan” and says she worked at a rubber plantation. According to Thai media, Chan was attempting…
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First case of Beta variant reported in Bangkok
Bangkok has reported its first case of the Beta variant of Covid-19, originally detected in South Africa. According to a Bangkok Post report, the patient had contact with an infected person in the southern province of Narathiwat. Hundreds of cases of the Beta variant have already been reported in southern Thailand and are believed to have been imported from Malaysia.…
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As Phuket opens, Bangkok, 9 provinces face new restrictions
Things are changing next week in the level of severity of the rules and restrictions for Covid-19 safety and control. No, we’re not talking about loosening all the restrictions in the Phuket Sandbox reopening, we’re referring to partial lockdowns in Bangkok and 9 other provinces around Thailand to battle rising Covid-19 infections. The Royal Gazette published today the new restrictions…
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Covid UPDATE Saturday: 4,161 new infections, 51 deaths
For Saturday, the trend of new infections, and deaths, from Covid-related disease, remains on the rise. Today the public health department announced 51 deaths and 4,161 new infections of Covid-19. Only 72 were related to detections in Thai prisons, a further drop in prisoners testing positive for the coronavirus. As the Thai government is faced with its worst week of…
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1 month closure of Bangkok, southern work camps ordered
While Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul claimed the situation in Bangkok hospitals was not critical, senior doctors at many hospitals are proposing a 1-week full lockdown of the capital city. Perhaps meeting in the middle, late this afternoon PM Prayut Chan-o-cha announced the 1-month closure of all construction work camps in Bangkok as well as 4…
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Man wanted for attempted murder arrested on train
A man who slashed a relative for not helping with car payments has been caught on a train in Nakhon Si Thammarat. An arrest warrant had been out for Kitiphong since November of last year for attempted murder. Kitiphon was arrested on a train in Nakhon Si Thammarat. He allegedly confessed to the slashing. According to the police, Kitiphon was…
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Driver killed after truck crashes from bridge, explodes in Hat Yai
A truck driver was killed in an explosion yesterday night after the vehicle drove off a bridge in Songkhla’s Hat Yai district and burst into flames. The truck transporting containers full of racks of eggs had passed the Sadao border checkpoint and was headed toward Nakhon Pathom. Officers investigating the incident say the truck crashed through a railing on the…
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South hit by 402 cases of Beta variant
The south of the country has been struck by a wave of Beta variant Covid-19 infections, after a cluster first discovered in a school spread to 402 people. The Beta variant, originally known as the South African variant, gives health officials greater cause for concern as studies show it may be more resistant to vaccines. According to the Bangkok Post,…
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2 suspected insurgents killed in gunfire exchange with police-military team
In a clash with Thai security forces at a seaside resort, 2 suspected insurgents were killed. As of this afternoon, a team of police and military were still surrounding the resort in Pattani’s Yaring district and another suspected insurgent was still inside. Pattani has been prone to violence due to the religious separatist insurgency in Thailand’s region near the Malaysian…
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Covid cluster spreads from Yala to other southern provinces
A Covid cluster in Thailand’s southern province Yala has widened to 190 infections in multiple provinces, says the Disease Control Department. The cluster started at a madrasa, an Islamic boarding school. The majority of the infections (69) were discovered in Yala. Some of the infections by province are as follows: Satun: 37 Songkhla: 17 Pattani: 14 Krabi:14 Narathiwat: 13 Surat…
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3 dead in 3 truck crash in Surat Thani
3 people are dead and 1 more person is seriously injured following a 10-wheeled truck smashing into the back of a trailer that was carrying trees. A truck full of tires then careened into them, which then burst into flames. The fiery car wreck happened in the southern Thai province of Surat Thai, early today. The crash happened on the…
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Missing fisherman’s body found in sea off Nakhon Si Thammarat
2 days ago a local fisherman went missing. Today, his body has been located floating in the ocean in the Khanom district, an area in the southern province Nakhon Si Thammarat. His family has positively identified the body as belonging to 57 year old Sang Tenphusa. They say he was an experienced angler. Reportedly, Sang had gone out fishing off…
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Songkhla officials investigate pricey street lamps
Officials in Hat Yai, a city in the southern province of Songkhla, are investigating whether they paid too much money for street lamps. Reportedly, this the third such allegation made toward a local administration in Thailand… This month. The new Hat Yai mayor, Sakhon Thongmunee, has ordered a panel to be established after he got the news that an administrative…
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More details uncovered in billionaire couple’s Koh Tao death
Details are emerging on the tragic drowning death of a billionaire hotel owner and his wife in Koh Tao last week as police investigate further. Along with a more detailed picture of the events of the day, a few inconsistencies emerged from the original information as the story broke, including a time gap between the first shouts of trouble were…
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Burmese migrants headed toward Malaysia arrested in Songkhla
Police arrest a group of Burmese migrants and an alleged guide from Myanmar in Songkhla’s Hat Yai district. Officers say the guide was leading the migrants from Moulmein, a city on Myanmar’s western coast, then across the Thai border to the southern province Ranong, headed toward Malaysia where they had jobs lined up. The migrants allegedly told police that they…
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UPDATE: Billionaire couple found dead at bottom of Koh Tao resort pool
The owner of a 5 star hotel in Phuket and his wife were found dead at the bottom of their hotel swimming pool on the island of Koh Tao on Friday afternoon. Police received the initial report at 4.45pm on Friday. The island off the Surat Thani province coast has gained notoriety after a string of suspicious and sensationalised deaths…
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Police arrest suspect who allegedly sold assault rifles stolen from military base
Officers in Thailand’s Deep South have arrested a man for allegedly selling assault rifles that were stolen from a military base in Narathiwat, a province by the Malaysian border with ongoing violence from the religious separatist insurgency. 6 out of the 26 AK102 assault rifles stolen from the the 4th Army Area base have been found. Earlier reports said 28 assault…
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