Speaking at a meeting to discuss improvements in public-health facilities to cope with new threats in the changing world, Associate Professor Sumet Peeravud, the director of Prince of Songkhla University's Sonkhlanagarind Hospital, urged the government to provide a specific plan to help hospitals deal with such a disaster.

Sumet said only the Army's Pramongkutklao Hospital had medical experts who were trained to deal with chemical and biological attacks.

"Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't happen," Sumet said. "And if it does happen, we're totally ill prepared to handle the situation."

He compared the possibility of such attacks to when bird flu first surfaced in the country.

Sumet's fear of such weapons of mass destruction was based on the smuggling of radioactive substances in Japan last year.

In February 2006 Japanese police raided more than 10 factories and offices of the Mitutoyo factory based in Kawasaki on suspicion of breaching Japan's foreign-exchange and trade-control laws.

The investigation was sparked by the International Atomic Energy Agency's discovery of three of the firm's measuring machines, including a three-dimensional model type that Mitutoyo was suspected of having exported to China and Thailand, at a nuclear facility in Libya during inspections between December 2003 and March 2004.

"I don't mean to scare the public. I just want to point out that this is our weak link," he said.

The upsurge of violence in the deep South began with a daring raid on a military camp in Narathiwat's Joh I Rong district, when 400 weapons were stolen on January 4, 2004. Four soldiers were killed in the attack.

Then came car and motorcycle bombs, which are now very common, said Sumet. He added that the "black-out attacks" in February, when power was cut in many areas, were another development in the violence.

Dr Morakot Kornkasem, Deputy Public Health Minister, said in a separate interview that he could not comment on Sumet's initiative as the issue was too big.

However, he believed the Public Health Ministry had less potential to deal with consequences of chemical and biological attacks and recommended that if the government wanted to prepare for such an attack the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology be involved.

As the largest medical facility in the South received casualties from hospitals in the three provinces, plus five districts of Songkhla province, Sonkhlanagarind Hospital was forced to extend the capacity of its emergency ward to deal with the rising numbers.

More than 200 seriously injured have been sent to the hospital for treatment, including costly brain and neurological surgery, said Sumet.

While waiting for a larger capacity, this month the hospital began providing a telephone medical-specialist consultant service for hospitals in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat around the clock.

Supreme Commander General Boonsang Niampradit said that the situation in the South had been deteriorating since 2004.

Arthit Khwankhom

The Nation