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Manuals providing post-quake evacuation and earthquake preparation instructions for Thais - especially those living in three at-risk provinces - will soon be distributed, says the director of the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Policy Bureau, reports the Bangkok Post. The ministry will additionally set up an earthquake warning machine on the 20th floor of the ministry building to alert people about the magnitude of an earthquake if one occurs in Thailand or in a nearby location...

'Investing in measures to adapt to climate change would pay better returns than paying for emergency disaster relief. When sea levels increase by 1cm, 30% of all rice-producing areas of the world will be submerged; and by that time the world population will have increased from seven to nine billion people,' said global climate justice advocate Jan Egeland....

People living on the Chao Phraya River are preparing for a possible inundation despite government assurances that there will be no repeat of last year's flooding. Residents raise questions about the effectiveness of the government's flood prevention scheme following government's failure to project and prevent flooding in 2011...

'We need to speed up construction of the projects as we have a specific time limit for using the loan,' Plodprasop Suraswadi, the chairman of the government-appointed Water and Flood Management Commission told firms bidding for the 350 billion baht flood prevention project in a Bangkok Post report...

A UK based risk modeling firm is urging the Thai government to maintain existing flood defence projects and to develop a database on flood defences, while it calls on insurance companies to help with providing data to aid flood risk assessments...

'The suffering and loss experienced during the floods last year have forced planners to rethink the development strategies they have being pursuing over the past few decades. Blindly aping the West and using foreign methods to tackle Asian floods have resulted in disastrous consequences, writes Said Irandoust,' president of the Asian Institute of Technology...

'Whatever attempts to preserve geological resources for future generations, to avoid natural disasters, reduce possible damages, and also city planning, those people involved must not forget to discuss [these matters] with geologists'...

According to Bangkok Post, the business sector is pressing the Thai government to focus on sustainable solutions rather than short-term floodwall construction before the rainy season arrives...