My comments will be on human settlement in coastal cities of Thailand in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.

On December 26, 2004 there was a huge earthquake in the sea in the northwest of the Sumatra Island with magnitude of 9.0. A great Tsunami approached the Andaman coasts of Thailand at Phuket, Pang-Nga, Krabi, Trang, Satun and Ranong causing around 8,347 casualties of Thais and foreign tourists.

The disaster affected the tourism industry along the Andaman coasts of Thailand for more than $ one billion US. Thai properties and natural environments suffered extreme destruction. This could be regarded as one of the most severe disasters that has ever occurred in Thailand’s history.

Government ‘s Actions

In April 2005, Department of Public Works and Town & Country Planning, Ministry of Interior visited the affected areas and provided guidance for appropriate resettlements and building reconstruction.

Thailand’s National Disaster Warning Center (NDWC) was established in May 2005. They installed some hundred warning towers along the coast of six Andaman coastal provinces as one of the communication modes in early warning system.

NDWC also installed a Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (DART) Buoy in the high sea of the Indian Ocean in 2006 to detect tsunami wave to improve warning time for early warning arrangement.