BANGKOK: -- Smith Tumsaroch, chairman of Thailand's National Disaster Warning Committee has announced that he will resign from the post, saying that the government has neglected its duties and did not provide an adequate budget to run the National Disaster Warning centre.

Mr. Smith, former Director General of the Meteorological Department, said during the past three years the centre had ensured the safety of the Thai public as well as visiting tourists by alerting both populations in case of an emergency such as the tsunami natural disaster, but practically speaking it was ignored by the government in terms of both budget and management.

The centre, therefore, lacks government support to reach its planned target, he said, adding that many staff that were borrowed from other agencies lost their enthusiasm and some had requested to return to their original agencies, and others had resigned.

Mr. Smith recommended that the centre should be set up and be run as independent agency to have more flexibility.

He said he would submit his resignation to the Minister of Information and Communication Technology.

The director added that the lack of government support could result in delays in issuing tsunami warnings and could have severe consequences in the event of another emergency.

He was also upset after the Office of the Auditor General of Thailand branded the centre as being as inefficient agency when it was compared with international organizations.

The centre was set up only three years ago and could not compare with well-established international organizations, he said.

The centre, set up after the 2004 tsunami, gathers information from different agencies and decides when to alert the public of possible dangers.

It was intended to avoid a repeat of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that hit Thailand's southern resort island of Phuket and five nearby Andaman Sea provinces in December 2004, killing over 5,000 people in the kingdom alone -- half of them foreign holidaymakers.

Thailand has installed a high-tech warning system to reassure tourists and businesses that the country's beaches are safe.

Almost 80 warning towers along the coast were set up and networking with the National Disaster Warning Centre in Bangkok.

Mr. Smith had raised the possibility of tsunami risks with government officials long before the 2004 disaster, but his warnings were seen as being impossible and his ideas dismissed.

--TNA 2008-03-13