BANGKOK Thailand AP When Thailand's economic bubble burst once-successful property developer Patcha Punprom found herself in the position of many Thais dreams shattered and facing bankruptcy. One night haunted by unpaid bills she overdosed on sleeping pills. Her mother saved her and put her in touch with a suicide hot line. ``I am broke and cannot afford my bills'' Patcha 28 told a worker at the hot line. ``All the time I want to die because it will end my problems.'' Patcha isn't alone in her despair. Thailand's economic collapse last year is being blamed for the doubling of the suicide rate a frightening development in a country renowned for an easygoing attitude toward life and where everything seemed to be getting better during the go-go early 1990s. Take the case of a would-be engineer who jumped from a 12th-story apartment in the middle of Bangkok last weekend. He left behind puzzled parents who can hardly understand how it happened to their family. They told police that their son was under heavy stress after a year of fruitless job-hunting. As a postgraduate student he had high hopes for his future and could not accept being unemployed. He was one of 2 million Thais that the recession the worst in decades has left jobless. Health authorities credit it with feeding rising drug abuse violence and suicides. ``Spreading stress and despair have triggered an alarming rise in suicide and violence especially among men who are the traditional breadwinners'' said Somchai Chakrabhand deputy director general of the Department of Mental Health. The main reasons for suicide used to be a broken heart chronic mental problems or disappointment related to home and school Somchai said. All those troubles still exist now joined by recession. Two suicides are reported each day in the Thai capital usually by poisoning shooting hanging or leaping from a building Somchai said. Last month a 62-year-old farmer hanged himself from a tree outside Government House where Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai and his Cabinet work after months of quiet protest. Debt-stricken Chum Sakhorn took his life to protest the government's indifference in helping him recover his farm from what he considered unscrupulous businessman and corrupt bureaucrats. The suicide became an embarrassing political issue then blew over. A total of 560 suicides were recorded in Thailand between July 1997 when the economic crisis began and June double that of previous years. Somchai estimates the financial crisis was behind 24 percent of the deaths. Three-quarters of the victims were men. Heavy publicity given suicides seems to be prompting more people to kill themselves. Endlessly repeated television footage of a suicidal woman who fell to her death from a rooftop during a bungled rescue bid was followed by four similar suicide attempts the next day. The account of a debt-ridden nurse who forced her 8-year-old son to take insecticide before strangling herself received wide media coverage. Within hours Bangkok police recorded three more suicides all men who were caught up in job and financial troubles. One jumped in front of a train another leaped from a five-story building and a third threw himself to a busy street from a pedestrian overpass. Hundreds of hot lines have been set up at government hospitals and health centers. The Mental Health Department has urged the media to be more sensitive in reporting suicide. The department and police have been discussing the formation of special units to deal with suicide threats. Each unit would be made up of psychologists police fire fighters and paramedics. APW19981201.0347.txt.body.html APW19981201.0851.txt.body.html