PHUKET: A team of Phuket officials is to survey supermarkets, stores and warehouses constantly while the national floods crisis continues to make sure distribution supply lines are working as effectively as possible and to clamp down on attempts to lift prices.

The suggestion from the chief executive of the Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation, Paiboon Upatising, was adopted when Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha met with all Phuket administrations yesterday.

It is expected the team will begin work immediately. Supermarkets have been plundered amid nervousness on Phuket about the effects of the floods, even though Phuket is 650 kilometres south of Bangkok.

A regular supply of essentials - bottled water, rice, instant noodles, canned food - has also been sent to aid flood victims from Phuket, where people have literally given until it hurts.

At least 40 doctors and nurses from Phuket's public hospitals are also working in the flood areas, yesterday's meeting heard. The administrative organisation has also donated 20 pink boats, as well as convoys of foodstuffs.

More tourists and ''refugees'' have headed south to Phuket and other cities and towns in the dry zones, following instructions to evacuate Bangkok as it copes with successive ''high tides'' and the threat of increased flooding.

One minor effect has been the cancellation of participation by 15 of the lesser teams in the Phuket International Beach Volleyball tournament, which begins today at Karon beach. Many Thais all over the country have turned their efforts to helping the afflicted, or returned to family homes.

PM Yingluck Shinawatra today sent encouraging messages that the worst might be over, although in some residential areas north, east and west of Bangkok the waters remain waist-deep and concerns are now focussing on the potential spread of disease and the possibility of weeks of stress causing mental illness.

It will be three months before some of the industrial parks reopen and the cost to the nation's economy cannot be accurately gauged until the water recedes further.

Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport remains untouched with a record number of 935 flights arriving and departing in a day recently. Some nations have issued travel alerts but only the Grand Palace and Chatuchak market, among Bangkok's tourist attractions, have been affected.

Part of the problem was caused by travel alerts being posted when Don Muang, Bangkok's second airport, suffered minor flooding. Photographs of planes without engines standing in water caused unrealistic alarm.

Some news reports neglected to give an accurate overall picture - that Suvarnabhumi International Airport remained open, and that Phuket and many other parts of Thailand were not touched by the floods.

Yesterday's meeting on Phuket also agreed to set up a committee to look at Phuket's canal system and to make sure the problems that have arisen in Bangkok - where many canals have been built over or obstructed - are prevented from occurring on Phuket.