SEA RESCUE centres are to be set up in Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi as part of an effort to ''restore confidence among tourists and the image of tourism,'' the Thai News Agency reported today.

A budget of 18 million baht has been allocated for sea rescue centres in the three major Andaman tourism provinces, plus Ranong and Trang at a later date.

Local fishermen would be trained in appropriate rescue response techniques because they were often the first on the scene, the TNA report said.

The report quoted Phuket Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Centre chief Udomporn Karn as saying that the budget will also provide emergency aid kits for sea rescue within a five kilometre radius. Three speed boats would be part of the response.

The report said provision of the service ''will help restore confidence among visitors in handling natural disasters and accidents at sea as well as rebuilding the image of tourism in the Andaman coastal provinces.''

The sinking of the tourist dive boat Dive Asia 1 earlier this year involved the drowning of seven people, six of them from Europe and Japan.

Another 23 survivors were plucked from two liferaft, but only after they spent many hours floating in the sea within sight of Patong.

Eventually the survivors managed to signal to a fishing boat with a mirror, then used the fisherman's mobile telephone to call in their own rescue.

Many questions still remain unanswered. Why did a relatively new ''live-aboard'' vessel sink in a sudden squall, without receiving a weather warning, or apparently even without the time to send an SOS?

Why was no aircraft sent to search for the survivors, once authorities knew the vessel was missing?

An aircraft would have found the liferaft speedily, within an hour or so at the most.

If the weather had been more severe, the lives of the survivors could have been at risk. Instead, they bobbed at sea for hours in bright weather, just off Patong, until they organised their own rescue.