Thai road progress

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32586, 21 April 1971, Page 2

Thai road progress

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) BANGKOK, April 19. A major step in the New Zealand road project in north-eastern Thailand will be celebrated tomorrow with a simple ceremony. The New Zealand Ambassador (Mr E. H. Halstead) will mount a bulldozer to shift a pile of mud, marking the finish of earthworks on the 90-mile road. New Zealand Army engineers have been working on the road, which links two remote towns in the isolated countryside 300 miles north of Bangkok, since the end of 1965. If the coming rainy sea-

son is not too bad, the twolane road between Borabu and Buriram should be sealed by the end of the year. The road will cut travelling time between the two towns from a nine-hour nightmare and that possible only in the dry season to a two-hour trip in all weathers. In addition, it has opened up vast tracts of country and more than 250 villages previously accessible only on elephant-back. New Zealand has spent about s2m on the project, which has been carried out by teams of up to 26 Army

engineers working with a Thai labour force of 300. Thailand has spent about ssm on the project The road, which is now sealed two-thirds of the way has already made its impact on the area, leading to unprecedented development of towns and villages and opening markets for fanners. The road was to have been completed by early this year, but the target date was set back because of the wear and tear on machinery in the dry, dusty climate where mid summer temperatures exceed 100 degrees.