Long-awaited rain fell over four drought-struck provinces overnight and during the day Wednesday, reviving withering rice crops but only slightly raising hopes of the upcountry regions coming out of the crisis.
While rice farmers in Surin, Maha Sarakham and Phayao were grateful for rain replenishing their crops, and people in Kanchanaburi were optimistic over rising water levels in the Vajiralongkorn dam, villagers in other provinces are still struggling with water shortages. In Chaiyaphum the situation is so severe that officials have been forced to stop supplying tap water at night.
Surin witnessed a sudden swing from drought to an inundation of rain Wednesday. Farmers were happy to see their arid paddy fields soaked with torrential rain, which began in the northeastern province on Tuesday night. Meanwhile, city dwellers in Muang district woke up to flooded streets they had to wade through to get to work.
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Rainfall continued until Wednesday, hitting the province for at least seven hours. With this amount of water, farmers said, their rice seedlings could survive for one month without further rainfall.
According to forecasts by the Meteorology Department, most parts of the country will experience more rain from the end of the month onwards.
Farmers, grateful to see the first rain in two months, said they would be even happier if the rain had come sooner.
Chankaeo Sompan, a rice farmer in Phayao's Muang district, said the rain on Tuesday night had saved her family money as she did not need to pay for water pumping to keep her crops alive.
"I can say that this rain revitalises farmers," she said, as many rice farmers in her neighbourhood started planting their seedlings.
Farmers in Maha Sarakham shared similar views. However, irrigation officials said the recent rainfall in all 13 districts of the province had only added small amounts of water to the five major reservoirs, and warned the province was still in a drought crisis.
Rain also brought some relief in Kanchanaburi's Sangkhla Buri district where rain fell all day Wednesday. However, it was still a small amount of rain compared with that of the same period last year.
Low water levels in the Vajiralongkorn dam were still not enough for local tour operators to resume river sightseeing for visitors.
This included tourist raft trips along the Song Kalia River to the scenic Uttamanusorn Bridge, and to Saphan Mon, the world's second longest wooden bridge after Ubeng Bridge in Myanmar.
Currently the dam has about 846 million cubic metres of water while the province's Srinakarin dam can supply about 1,779 million cu/m to farmers and householders.
Still, the situation in Kanchanaburi was better than that of Ubonrat dam in Khon Kaen.
The reservoir now has only 98 million cu/m, or about 5% of water storage, for usage, according to Thirayut Chanditthawong, head of Khon Kaen's disaster prevention and mitigation office.
Authorities are building 935 artesian wells for people across 26 districts to boost the water supply, he said.
Meanwhile, Metropolitan Waterworks Authority governor Thanasak Watanathana dismissed reports that tap water in the capital would last only 30 more days if there was no rain, saying rain had started to fall in some areas, which would increase available water sources.
