Thai floods

[Deleted]

The images of the situation are becoming more and more impressive (not to say grim). I was talking to one of my colleagues in Amsterdam today who is about to fly to Bangkok with his non refundable ticket for three weeks in his house near Chiang Mai. If he can get to Chiang Mai, no problem, because it is in the highlands unaffected by flooding. But even the new Bangkok airport risks going underwater just as the old one has already done so.

[hwinpp]

Yeah, well, the well connected populace of Bangkok has always managed to get the respective governments to drown the countryside every time there's a flood. This time they can't escape (even though the government once again drowned everybody outside the city), there's just too much of the wet stuff around.

[Deleted]

From what I understand, the first mistake was to open the dams much too late. They wanted to keep extra water for the dry season and did not react when the rains went far above normal.

[curt]

There are plenty of reasons for this situations and plenty of "them" involved. Right now, the biggest problem is one government in charge of Thailand and another, opposing government, in charge of Bangkok. Cooperation and communication aren't their strong points and they both want to spin this to their advantage.


For a simple explanation of "why", here is "Floods for Dummies", a non-political look at the flood:

[bixaorellana]

It's great to hear from you, Curt and thanks for the explanations. Have you been affected in any way so far?

I watched the opening of the Morganza Spillway very closely, including the events leading up to it. Kerouac mentions opening the dams and the video talks about levees. I guess some dams have floodgates like spillways, correct?

So Bangkok is protected by levees, and in the past other land has been sacrificed to flood waters in order to save the city. Certainly that's been the case with New Orleans, which is what I have to relate to. But is saving a densely populated area necessarily a cynical political move, as you say HW? That's a sincere question on my part, not a rhetorical one. Of course it's entirely possible that I'm brainwashed by the political spin from the area that I know.

[curt]

It's really not entirely a political move.

Bangkok is the major portion of Thailand's GNP. If Bangkok falls, it will make it just that much harder for the rest of the country to recover. We are already seeing global effects from the few outlying businesses that have been affected.

The flooded areas have always been flooded. It's just that people have established themselves there. They thought they could control flooding. As often is the case, they thought wrong.

We are well prepared. Everything is upstairs, our community is sandbagged, my doors are sealed and I've installed screw in plugs for the floor drains. We enter the house through a window!

So far, flooding has only come within a mile of us. Hopefully, all our preparation won't be needed.

[Deleted]

The news today was saying that if Bangkok gets completely flooded, it's going to cost the entire country 2 points in economic growth this year. That is a lot!

[bixaorellana]

That's huge, especially with all the recovery that will be needed even if not one more acre of the country were to be flooded this year.

Gosh, Curt -- I hope that old superstition that if you're prepared, you won't need the preparations holds true in your case!

[hwinpp]

Oct 30, 2011 4:57:36 GMT curt said:

It's really not entirely a political move.

...

I agree, it's the force of circumstances.

But it cannot be said that there's no political angle to the crisis.

With the governor of Bangkok refusing to open the flood gates I'm not sure there won't be energies diverted.

As the Floodwaters Rise in Thailand, an Ideological Debate Comes to the Surface

Both in their scale and in their impact on people’s lives, the ongoing floods have brought to Thailand a tragedy whose dimensions can be hard to grasp. Thousands of factories have closed. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are in jeopardy. Millions of people dependent on the workers who held those jobs now face financial uncertainty.

At least 350 people have lost their lives and there are fears that afflictions such as diarrhoea, typhoid, leptospirosis and skin infections will add to this suffering in the weeks and months ahead.

The Thai government expects to spend billions of dollars on post-flood cleanup, recovery and reconstruction. Yet how to go about those tasks, how long they will take and whether foreign investors will have the confidence to return to the major industrial estates in Chao Phraya Delta provinces like Ayutthaya are open questions.

All of this is bad enough. But media coverage of the Thai floods has ignored an additional important dimension of the unfolding situation: The floods have triggered a political and ideological contest concerning the role of the Thai monarchy. This contest is playing out on a number of levels.

On one level, it is about who offers symbolic leadership to Thailand during times of crisis. During the second week of August, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra visited the northern provinces of Sukhothai, Uttaradit, Phrae and Nan in one of her first high-visibility acts after taking office.

In the first of those provinces, she was photographed walking through flood waters in rubber boots. While in most countries such an act by a head of government would appear routine and reassuring, in the Thai context it had other meanings. For many decades, the national leader that Thais were most accustomed to seeing photographed on visits to rural people under adverse conditions was their king. Today, King Bhumibol Adulyadej has reached an age at which such visits are no longer possible. At the same time, younger members of the royal family — the king’s children and grandchildren — have opted to make their marks in the realms of scientific research, military aviation, scholarship, literature, music, fashion and the law. None has come to be associated as directly with the welfare of rural Thailand as the king.

In one sense, the visibility of Yingluck’s August trip had an encouraging dimension. It underlined the fact that the leader of Thailand’s elected government was prepared to shoulder responsibility in times of crisis. In another sense, however, it presented a potentially jarring image to Thais accustomed to the long-dominant royal order in their country.

On a second level, the events are more nakedly political. Thais unreconciled to the victory of Yingluck’s Red-Shirt-supported Pheu Thai Party in July’s polls have in recent weeks tried to turn her government’s current struggle to partisan political advantage. They have criticized the prime minister as favoring photo opportunities over effective measures to address the crisis. They have claimed that she remained more focused on enacting policies to enrich people and firms close to her government than on dealing with the mounting disaster facing the country. They have decried her government’s state of apparent confusion in the face of the vast sea of floodwaters that has now overrun its crisis center at the Don Mueang airport.

Such criticism, justified or not, is natural in a free-wheeling political culture like Thailand’s. But it has in this instance been accompanied, in cyberspace in particular , by another form of criticism: faulting Yingluck for, in essence, not having the wisdom and expertise of King Bhumibol in matters relating to water — or at least for not drawing sufficiently on that wisdom and expertise and therefore showing disrespect for the king.

Thais on the Yellow, anti-Thaksinite side of their country’s deep political divide have taken to the Internet to assure one another that the king has set up an alternate crisis center to meet the challenge posed by the flooding. To prove their case, they have even circulated on Facebook a photograph of the king meeting with a group of officials, with a large map spread out in front of them. It turns out, however, that the photograph comes from a TV news report from June on the king’s meeting with the leadership of the hospital in which he has stayed since 2009 to discuss road construction and drainage in the area around the hospital.

Attacks of this nature exemplify the longstanding determination of anti-Thaksinite, anti-Red-Shirt political elements in Thailand to accuse their opponents of disrespect for the monarchy. What gives these attacks particular force among those elements, however, is King Bhumibol’s long history of interest in water issues. Perhaps to pre-empt such attacks, Yingluck used her late-September audience with the king not only to report on her government’s efforts to manage the flooding but also to solicit his advice on appropriate measures to take.

In many respects, the third level on which Thailand’s flood crisis has occasioned an ideological contest over the monarchy is the most dangerous. It relates directly to the king’s decades-old interest in and association with management of Thai water resources.

The king has repeatedly offered ideas about those resources in his birthday speech to the nation each December. Major dams in northern Thailand are named for King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit, while those in the northeast of the country carry the names of their three daughters. The Royal Irrigation Department celebrated King Bhumibol’s 60th birthday in 1987 with the publication of a book on water resources development compiled by the department’s then director general, who later served as an adviser to the king on water projects. In 2006, events marking the king’s 60th year on the throne included a lecture on “His Majesty the King and Hydropower.” In the same year, The Bangkok Post published a photograph captioned, “While playing in a Swiss forest as a boy, His Majesty shows his keenness for water management by building a dam with clay.” The reverse side of a 1,000 baht note pictures the king in front of another dam, one whose construction he advocated with unusual directness in his birthday speech of 1993.

Smith Dharmasoraoja, a former director general of the Department of Meteorology, has spoken in recent days of the flooding crisis as a reflection of the country’s flawed approach to water management. There is a growing understanding in Thailand that such long-term factors as the degradation of watersheds and water catchment areas, urban sprawl and industrialization and an inflexible water bureaucracy with little idea of how best to manage its dams explain the current disaster far more than do heavy rains in recent months.

Concern that these factors will come to be associated with King Bhumibol’s own legacy of interest in and influence over the management of water resources is growing among observers of Thai affairs. Many worry that the ideological strife to which that association might lead could prove almost as destructive to the country as the floods themselves.

Michael J. Montesano is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/as-the-floodwaters-rise-in-thailand-an-ideological-debate-comes-to-the-surface/474273

[curt]

There are some strong political forces at play, one government for Thailand, another for Bangkok. Many of the "failures" could even be intentional.

But, all the planning, engineering and construction, leading to this crisis, has been going on through many different administrations.

[Deleted]

There is a daily flood update by this Bangkok blogger.

(That's a great avatar, curt!)

[Deleted]

I am amazed at how life goes on in Bangkok. "Just a minor inconvenience."

[bjd]

In 2006, events marking the king’s 60th year on the throne included a lecture on “His Majesty the King and Hydropower.” In the same year, The Bangkok Post published a photograph captioned, “While playing in a Swiss forest as a boy, His Majesty shows his keenness for water management by building a dam with clay.

This reminds of the kind of stuff that used to be published about Stalin. In fact any country with a personality cult could do.

[curt]

Nov 7, 2011 12:44:21 GMT kerouac2 said:

I am amazed at how life goes on in Bangkok. "Just a minor inconvenience."

Flooding is normal for Bangkok. Most of what is happening, in Bangkok, on the "dry" side of the big barriers, is not much different than what happens regularly. The difference is its longevity.


Outside those barriers, there is a catastrophe. It's anything but business as usual.

[bixaorellana]

Is Bangkok suffering shortages? The loss of certain crops must be devastating, but what about things that routinely get trucked into a city -- basic groceries, toilet paper, etc.? Also, what about the drinking water supply?

[curt]

There is definitely a bottled water shortage. What water appears, quickly disappears. Ironically, it's not a water shortage,but a bottle shortage. The suppliers of bottles are shut down. Some bottled water is coming in from Malaysia

Restaurants are seeing the effects to different extents. Some cut some items from their menus, while others, like Hachiban Ramen, have closed down their chain due to lack of noodle supplies.

Smaller shops and carts have either shut down or created variations, depending on available ingredients. Some of the new items are actually pretty good!

We can all look forward to rice price increases. Much of SEA's crop has been lost.

Seagate and Western Digital have ceased hard drive production. Even Apple faces some supply shortages.

Because of the factory shutdowns here, Honda and Toyota plants, in other countries, have been affected.

[bixaorellana]

Thanks for the answers, Curt Really brings home the heavy ripple effect which will probably get more severe.

Are you all being warned about tap water -- not to brush your teeth with it, to be sure to boil it, that sort of thing? Also, what's the main cooking fuel there? If it's bottled gas, is there a shortage of that looming?

[curt]

Haven't seen any shortages of gas, although "picnic" burners are in short supply. These are small, 5 liter bottles, with a burner attached. People are stocking up on them for auxiliary cookers.

[onlymark]

Nov 9, 2011 5:28:49 GMT bixaorellana said:

the heavy ripple effect

Was that deliberate Bixa?

[bixaorellana]

Probably prudent to stock up on emergency gas bottles. I wondered about bottled gas because of the effects of broken gas lines in New Orleans after Katrina, with the bizarre spectacle of houses in flames while completely surrounded by water.

Mark -- No, not deliberate, although now that you point it out, inadvertently funny.

[curt]

Here's a piece, by an Associated Press reporter, apparently caught up in the "personality cult".

goo.gl/8rZFK

[bixaorellana]

Absolutely fascinating to read how committed he was to this crucial aspect of health and development in his country. The article says that he was formally unschooled in the subject, but it's obvious he must have educated himself on it, plus engaged experts to formulate ways to confront the various problems of water management.

I suppose I could look this up, but Curt -- do you know if engineering, flood control, etc. are subjects that came to be promoted for university candidates in Thailand?

[hwinpp]

You don't understand, Bix.

Curt is being curt and slightly sarcastic. He can't write clearer.

[curt]

The only sarcasm is my use of the term "personality cult".

[hwinpp]

That's what I meant.

[Deleted]

Water still rising in some parts of Bangkok....

Bangkok authorities are telling more residents to leave as floodwaters threaten southwestern parts of the Thai capital.

Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said people should evacuate three neighbourhoods due to surging water levels.

He said on Sunday pumps were operating around the clock and more pumps were being added to help drain the water.

Still, floodwaters are receding elsewhere.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said previously the city centre would have light flooding if the water penetrated that far but western areas of Bangkok were threatened with inundation.

The national death toll from floods since late July has reached 536.

More than 13.1 million people - one in five Thais - are affected.

--from 9 News Australia

[bixaorellana]

Geez -- not good!

This picture is too big to post, so click here.
The headline is Flood shelter at Rajamangala Stadium, Bangkok ... & is dated October 26. It's quite orderly and under-utilized in the picture. Probably won't look the same in just a couple of days.

Here's an interesting story about a shelter "neighborhood":

The company that owns the forms has told the people they can stay, and is also letting them tap into electricity so there's light, TV, fans and room for pets. (CNN)            Click picture for full story.

As of yesterday, Curt was still posting on anyport's facebook friend page, "Cheap Eats Bangkok". Hope you're okay, Curt!

[curt]

I'm fine. The Prapa Canal has acted as a barrier for us. The waters have surrounded us, but we are high and dry.

Those are the rail bed for the new "skytrain" links. They raise them with a rather unique crane, then cable and "glue" them together.

[bixaorellana]

Even its name is unique! ;D

Are the pulley-looking things underneath to pick up several forms at one time? It would appear that the crane and the forms were invented together.

Great to hear that you're okay.

[spindrift]

Is there flooding in Phuket?