Weekly travel news update on 26th October 2011

This is the weekly news updates on travel related events happening around the world. Some would affect your travel plans or your upcoming travel itinerary, while others could lead you to embark on new travel ideas. These are things happening in the past week:

•  The biggest news last week was definitely the disastrous earthquake tragedy happened in Turkey last Sunday. Two days after the 7.2-magnitude earthquake, a total of 430 people are now known to have died in Van province, near the Iranian border, according to Turkey’s disaster and emergency administration. More than 2,200 buildings were destroyed, many of them in the worst-affected zone near Ercis. Van, the much bigger provincial capital about 60 miles to the south, was also affected by the earthquake, but most of the remaining rescue efforts are concentrated in Ercis. There are few hundreds more people still missing and the rescue works for survivors are still carried on, albeit the chances are getting slimmer. TF Comment: Even though the affected cities are quite far away from the popular travel destination of Istanbul, because it sits on the same major geological fault lines as Ercis and Van, it is still unsafe for travelers to visit Istanbul currently. Keep away but pray for the survivors! 🙁
  
• Thailand is used to floods in monsoon season, but this year’s are the worst for more than half a century. Half of the country is affected by the storm flood since 3 months ago. They have killed at least 366 people since July and affected almost 2.5 million. More than 113,000 are living in shelters. While most of Bangkok has yet to be affected by flooding, there is growing concern in the capital. Flood waters up to 1.5 metres high could sweep through the centre of Bangkok if the barriers break, the Thai prime minister has warned , amid growing fears about the weekend’s high tides. The government declared a five-day holiday in Bangkok and affected provinces, and the education ministry ordered schools to close until 7 November. Financial institutions will remain open. Commercial flights to Bangkok’s second airport, Don Muang, stopped on Tuesday as waters inundated the area, reported The Guardian. Reported by Nikonrumors that Nikon factory in Bangkok was badly hit by the flood which has caused much delays in their production, including the rumored new Nikon D800. TF: Avoid traveling to Thailand now, it is unsafe to visit the country at the moment. However, you may plan for an island tour to Phuket or Krabi at the south of Thailand, which is still unaffected at the moment. 🙂
  

That’s all news related to travel and interested me that happened over the last week. Let’s see what would be happening this coming week. 🙂 – Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel blog

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.