Heavy storm wreaks havoc in Pattaya

7 Mar 2011

Last Tuesday, strong winds and torrential rain wreaked havoc in the eastern Thai seaside resort of Pattaya. The cyclone-like storm uprooted trees and caused severe damage to the roofs of buildings and also injured one person.

A woman living in the Nongprue Village 6 area of the resort suffered cuts and bruises when a brick wall collapsed and trapped her. She was taken to hospital for a check-up to ensure no serious harm had been done.

Nongprue and also Pong Village 4 bore the brunt of the 30-minute storm and council officials, conducting surveys of the damage caused during it, found that more than 10 houses were badly damaged with roofs ripped off by the winds or broken by trees falling on them. A number of cars had also been partially crushed by falling trees and billboards.

At one residence only the front wheel of a new motorcycle could be seen protruding from under the leaves of a heavy tree which had fallen and almost flattened it.

One local resident told reporters who attended the scene that he had never seen anything as bad as the storm and that there had been no prior warning and it whipped up to a frenzy within minutes. Other villagers asked the municipal officials for assistance as they no longer had a roof above their heads.

Tags: storm pattaya weather