BANGKOK, Oct 5: A growing number of depressed Thais are killing themselves as the country's worst economic slump since World War II hits the pockets of businessmen and workers here, surveys revealed Sunday.

The limping Asian Tiger economy is suffering a ballooning suicide rate and a higher than usual number of cases of depression as budgets get tighter, jobs get scarcer and businesses fail.

``Experts at the mental health department (MHD) believe the downturn is a significant factor in the increase in the number of people taking their lives,'' The Bangkok Post reported.

``Without hope, bankrupt or unemployed, they say, people are taking their lives as a means of escape,'' the paper said, citing a MHD survey.The paper listed a litany of suicides reported in the national press on almost a daily basis since July, when the effects of the economic crunch began making themselves bitterly felt.

Many Thais who kill themselves have ``been facing economic pressure for some time and the flotation of the baht was the last straw,'' the MHD's Dr Yongyudh Wong Phiromsan was quoted as saying.

The Thai economic crisis reached its nadir on July 2 when the government announced the shock float of the beleaguered currency, a move which sent its value spiralling by around 30 per cent and sparked regional financial turmoil.

Yongyudh said many people have found it difficult to adjust to the suddenness with which security and affluence changed to debt, bankruptcy and worry.

A survey of 410 people carried out by his department in August showed workers in the battered property and finance sectors were more prone to stress and depression which could lead to suicide. The sectors have been the worst hit by the slump which has left the property market all but moribund, while the finance sector is burdened with a staggering 31 billion dollars in bad debts -- much of them run up in real estate.

Some 5.8 per cent of people in the property sector polled had thought about ending it all, while 2.3 per cent of finance sector workers' thoughts had turned to suicide, Yongyudh said.

But other experts were quoted as saying that despite the gloomy economic scenario and growing depression, drug addiction, alcoholism and mental disorders remained among the main reasons for suicides.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.