The politics behind Thailand's floods

Opposition to file motion to question PM about floods - The Nation

Opposition to file motion to question PM about floods

November 1, 2011 7:00 am

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The opposition will on Wednesday submit an interpolation to question the prime minister on measures to deal with the flooding situation, chief opposition whip Jurin Laksanavisith said on Tuesday.

Jurin said about 30 opposition MPs wanted a debate on the flood situation. The opposition whips would therefore convene a meeting at 11am on Wednesday to define the framework for the debate, which would start in the afternoon.

He said the opposition would question Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on four points:

1) How to protect the areas that have not yet been flooded and how the government would provide correct information to the public

2) How to drain water from flooded areas fast

3) How to alleviate the suffering of flood victims; how to efficiently evacuate flood victims and how to tackle rising prices of consumer goods

4) How to rehabilitate the agricultural, industrial and social sectors systematically.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php...d=22366&page=2

Thai Floods Batter Burmese Migrants

By LAWI WENG and KO HTWE
Tuesday, November 1, 2011

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Migrant workers from Burma sort fish after unloading the catch from a boat at the port of Mahachai, near Bangkok in September. (Photo: Reuters)

Some 1,000 Burmese factory workers have been laid off at the Thai-Burmese border after a shortage of materials due to floods in central Thailand forced some 30 factories to close over the past week.

The factories, which are located on the Thai side of the Three Pagodas Pass border area, were producing products such as shoes, textiles, electrical components, garments and wigs.

“We were told that the storage facilities for the factories' raw material had been inundated by floodwaters in Bangkok,” said a Mon textile businessman in Three Pagodas Pass. “Without the raw materials, we have had to suspend operations for a while.”

Speaking to The Irrawaddy, Nai Seik Lyi, a resident in Three Pagodas Pass, said, “My daughter lost her job on Friday. She does not know when she can go back to work because the employer could not tell them exactly when the factory will reopen.

There are around 5,000 Burmese migrants in Three Pagodas Pass, many of them coming from different parts of Burma. A successful strike in July forced factory owners to increase wages by around 15 baht (US $0.50) a day. Most workers in the factories were earning between 80 and 95 baht for a nine-hour workday, depending on their experience.

Migrants' wages in Three Pagodas Pass are relatively low compared to other parts of Thailand.

Local sources in Three Pagodas Pass say many families will struggle to pay bills and buy food, and in many cases their debts will spiral.

Meanwhile, various sources have confirmed that thousands of Burmese migrant workers—some with legal work papers, some without—have been arrested and forced to pay bribes by Thai police officers and immigration officials after they were evacuated from the Bangkok floods.

Migrant workers and foreign observers have claimed that the detainees were arrested on their way out of the Thai capital at police checkpoints or at the entry post to Mae Sot on the Thai-Burmese border. They were then forced to pay “fines” imposed for being outside their work zone or for having no registration paperwork.

Burmese workers in Thailand must register with the authorities, but cannot legally leave the area where they are temporarily contracted to work and live while in Thailand.

Hundreds of the arrested migrants were crowded into cattle trucks and driven to Mae Sot Immigration Center where they were reportedly denied food and water, and held without charge.

Ma Mar, an undocumented migrant who was arrested on Friday night at the Mae Sot Immigration Gate, said she was not given any food or water while being detained in the Mae Sot detention center until Saturday afternoon before she was deported across the border to to Myawaddy later that day.

“I only had the drinking water that I arrived with,” she said. “Some detainees who had enough money could pay the guards to get it for them. But I had no money to pay for food.”

But while a large number of migrants fleeing Bangkok do not have legal work papers, hundreds of others do. Many have undergone a painstaking registration process that allows them to work temporarily in Thailand—supposedly without the fear of being arrested and subjected to extortion.

Those registered workers hold registration papers known as Temporary ID cards (tor ror in Thai) 38/1. The card is a pre-requisite to completing the “nationality verification process,” the next step to receiving a temporary passport, but it does not allow the migrant worker to leave the specific area where he or she is registered.

Most migrants with Tor Ror 38/1 cards find themselves restricted to low-paid labor in construction, agriculture and factories, or working as domestic staff.

Ko Aye, the head of the Migrant Assistance Program in Mae Sot, said that between 500 to 1,000 migrant workers—documented and undocumented—had arrived in Mae Sot every day over the last two weeks to escape the flooding in central Thailand.

A majority said they had been stopped and detained at the immigration gate on the outskirts of Mae Sot, which was being jointly run by officers from Thai immigration, the police, customs and the local army.

“The undocumented workers were arrested and taken to the local immigration detention center,” said Ko Aye. “If they were lucky, they were deported across the border immediately; others had to stay overnight in detention.”

“In the detention center, no food or water is provided for detainees,” he said.

“Migrants who wish to get food have to pay 50 baht to the officers.”

To compound the misery, many of the Burmese workers arranged transportation to the border through brokers who had apparently cleared their travel with immigration officials for a bribe of 2,500 baht ($50) per worker—for many the equivalent of a month's salary.

However, the passage did not prevent those workers being detained or harassed for additional money, sources say.

Andy Hall, a researcher at the Institute of Population and Social Research (IPSR) at Mahidol University, said more than 3,000 migrants had been detained at the Immigration Center in Mae Sot between Oct 15 – 29.

He urged the Thai government to ensure that migrants are allowed safe passage without exploitation and abuse by Thai officials.

“The government needs to have a clear policy and commitment to address the issue,” he said. “This process is not being managed properly and is leading to human rights violations”

Hall said that several immigration officials and brokers arranged for migrant workers to be smuggled to the border packed into in six-wheel trucks, carrying some 150 migrants each.

Migrants had to pay 2,400 baht each for this privilege, he said.

“It is unacceptable [for officials] to be profiteering like that in a time of disaster,” said Hall.

However, immigration officials in Mae Sot denied the accusation when contacted by The Irrawaddy on Tuesday.

“We currently have no detainees in our center, and we allow workers the option of going back to Burma,” said an official at the office. “I have never heard of a case where anyone was demanded 50 baht for food. We supply meals to anyone detained at the center.”

On Sunday, Bangkok-based The Nation wrote in an editorial that Burmese and others evacuated in the flood should get free passage out the city, and not be fined. It also reported that police in Bang Sue were openly seeking bribes—4,000 baht ($130) per person to return "legal" migrants to the border.

The Bangkok Post reported that more than 10,000 Burmese migrant workers in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces hit by flooding had returned to Burma.

Independent networks at border said that of the 10,000 migrants, approximately 3,000 had passports. Brokers involved in the re-entry process are charging those migrants up to 2,000 baht per person for “liaising” with immigration officials on behalf of the migrant who wishes a re-entry stamp.

After being deported from Mae Sot, migrants are invariably dumped at Gate 10 (sometimes known as 999 Gate) on the bank of the Moei River in Myawaddy, an area controlled by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) who promptly demand more money.

“They [the DKBA officials] assume we have money and ask for 1,500 baht from each of us,” she said. “I replied that I have no money. So they forced me to buy a Karen CD from them for 50 baht, then demanded another 20 baht for 'our stay.'”

“Some migrants have lost all their belongings through all the extortion along the route,” Ma Mar said.

you can blame all the administration servants all you want but they are not the source of the problem

it's a lack of leadership, and it comes to no surprise

if Thaksin would have been in charge, I bet things would have moved quite differently and more efficiently,

Poor Y doesn't have any credibility, even in her own government, they all know why she got the job

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Originally Posted by Butterfly

Poor Y doesn't have any credibility, even in her own government, they all know why she got the job

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I hear that someone had to paint 'L' & 'R' on her Burberry wellies for her.

In flooded Bangkok, shades of Hurricane Katrina | GlobalPost

In flooded Bangkok, shades of Hurricane Katrina

Comparing Thailand’s crisis to New Orleans’ darkest hour.

Patrick WinnNovember 1, 2011 07:59

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Thai residents make their way across a flooded street close to the rising waters of the Chao Phraya river on October 30, 2011 in Bangkok, Thailand. (Daniel Berehulak/AFP/Getty Images)

BANGKOK, Thailand — Sacrificial neighborhoods, overtaxed infrastructure and political infighting. Though far less chaotic and fatal than Hurricane Katrina, Bangkok’s flooding woes share similarities with the 2005 disaster that nearly destroyed New Orleans.

Bangkok and New Orleans, both founded in the 18th century, are low-lying port cities built in natural floodplains. As they developed, both cities lost protective marshlands and forests to concrete sprawl and deforestation, leaving residents more vulnerable to floodwaters.

Greater Bangkok’s crisis and Hurricane Katrina are not equal in scope: the Thai floods’ rising death tool is at 380 and Katrina killed more than 1,800. A sudden and ferocious hurricane wrought New Orleans’ flooding; Thailand has suffered the agonizing build-up of waters brought by a 25 percent increase in average seasonal rainfall.

But there are parallels between how Americans and Thais, leaders and locals alike, have coped with the costliest natural disasters in each of their recent histories.

Political feuding

Among the Katrina disaster’s most enduring quotes came from Ray Nagin, then New Orleans’ mayor, scolding the federal government in a radio interview: “Get off your asses and let’s do something. And let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.”

The Thai crisis has spawned “Listen to me only,” a repeated entreaty from Bangkok’s governor, Sukhumphand Paribatra, to heed his guidance over prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s camp. As with Nagin and former President George Bush, Sukhumphand and Yingluck are allegiant to rival political parties.

Thailand’s floods, like Katrina’s, have torn political foes further apart instead of uniting them in the face of disaster. The public sparring has left the public unsure who to trust.

Officials from various agencies have contradicted each others’ evacuation warnings. Accusations that Bangkok officials waited too long to open canals amount to a “myth made up for political reasons,” Sukhumphand told Bloomberg reporters. The mass sandbagging of shops and homes in areas officially predicted to remain dry suggest that many aren’t relying on one agency’s word.

Sacrificial neighborhoods

As in New Orleans, Greater Bangkok’s flood woes aren’t spread evenly across the area.

In both cities, flooding depends not just on topography but on man-made structures. New Orleans’ low-lying Lower Ninth Ward, already wracked by poverty, was wiped out when levees burst. Other locales, such as the touristed French Quarter, were spared the worst of Katrina’s wrath.

This has engendered a sentiment of unfair sacrifice in New Orleans’ poorest quarters. Locals even hit the U.S. House of Representatives with a conspiracy theory that levees were secretly bombed to flood the poor and spare the rest. Though unsubstantiated, the rumor is fueled by real events: New Orleans levees were dynamited during 1927 floods to protect certain districts.

Around Bangkok, it’s no conspiracy: many districts in Bangkok’s outskirts are being sacrificed to defend the Thai capital. Officials are rightly desperate to save Bangkok, accounting for roughly 40 percent of Thailand’s GDP.

Authorities have protected Bangkok with dikes and sandbag walls around the capital’s perimeter. Though the two sides of the wall aren’t separated by the yawning racial and income gaps seen in New Orleans, some residents on the wet side are resentful.

Fed-up residents northeast of the city — in zones suffering months of trashy, foul-smelling waters — have torn apart flood walls with axes and bare hands. Their demand: make the other side share the pain. Authorities have since tried to ease anger by opening up nearby floodgates.

These “flood mobs,” as Bangkok’s governor calls them, have appeared only in isolated spots. Still, the government appears mindful of escalating tensions.

Yingluck has, according to the New York Times, traveled to several sacrificial zones to explain that a flooded Bangkok will cause “foreigners to lose confidence in us and wonder why we cannot save our own capital.” Roughly 50,000 troops have deployed across Thailand to guard flood barriers and distribute aid.

Inept infrastructure

According to Thailand’s government, the floodwaters backed up north of Bangkok amount to 8 billion cubic meters. That’s 3.2 million Olympic pools worth of water.

Though most of Bangkok may yet be spared, Thailand’s dams and reservoirs have failed provinces outside the city and left an area the size of Kuwait submerged. Experts are at odds over what could prevent this crisis in the future: more canals to drain flooding into the sea, dam improvements or even a new “Ministry of Water.”

But, as in New Orleans, human error appears to have worsened the tragedy. Shortly after Katrina, Louisiana’s leading weather experts used computer modeling to assert that a “catastrophic structural failure” of flood walls exacerbated Katrina’s damage. And in 2009, a federal judge ruled that shoddy maintenance of a major channel led to unnecessarily bad flooding.

Even before the current crisis, Thailand’s ruling party acknowledged the nation’s flooding vulnerabilities. In a campaign prior to July elections, the party blanketed Bangkok with signs that read “Say Goodbye to Flooding” and promised to build a protective 18-mile seawall in the Gulf of Thailand. (However, runoff from the northern hills, not rising seawater, has created the current flood crisis.)

The Thai government this week has owned up to its lacking flood defenses. Officials have proposed a $26 billion spending package — called “New Thailand” — that will overhaul water management systems and rebuild damaged areas.

But with mixed assessments of New Orleans’ recovery, and warnings that a category 5 hurricane could bring a Katrina redux to the Big Easy, it appears that massive spending alone can’t restore greatness to a devastated region.

The U.S. federal government poured a similar amount of cash, $27 billion, into rebuilding Louisiana, a state somewhat smaller than Thailand’s central flood plain.

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Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

“Listen to me only,” a repeated entreaty from Bangkok’s governor, Sukhumphand Paribatra, to heed his guidance over prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s camp.

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Isn't this an automatic sacking offence? The governor of Bangkok (or any other province) is surely answerable and subservient to the national government.

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Originally Posted by sabang

Isn't this an automatic sacking offence? The governor of Bangkok (or any other province) is surely answerable and subservient to the national government.

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No, he isnt. He's elected by the people of Bangkok. The other provinces (except Phuket) are appointed.

OK, so he's elected (good, should be more of it)- but does that grant him a different legal status than any other provincial governor?

More to the point, isn't he answerable, and reporting to, the national government? If not, no wonder this country is such a political mess. You've got a military that reports to whomsoever it considers appropriate at the time (usually itself), and provinces that don't report to the Nation, ayyyaahhh.

Bangkok Post : Cause and effect

Cause and effect

Thailand has endured a perfect storm of factors, both natural and man-made, that have starkly exposed the consequences of poor planning and management.

• Published: 31/10/2011 at 12:00 AM
• Newspaper section: Business

When all is said and done, the 2011 flood will certainly rank among the worst in modern Thai history.

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Major dams such as Bhumibol were near full capacity before seasonal rains began in July, but officials in charge did not know how much water should be stored and when they should start discharges, says former Meteorological Department chief Smith Dharmasarojana.

The numbers are monumental. One-third of the country under water. Nearly 10 million people affected. Up to 1 million now unemployed, with economic losses estimated as high as 500 billion baht, or 5% of gross domestic product.

Why? Yes, there is no question that rainfall this year has been heavy, at 20-30% over seasonal averages. But this is a man-made disaster as much as it is a natural one, experts told the Bangkok Post.

The underlying factors of the crisis are many and complex.

Adis Israngkura, dean of development economics at the National Institute of Development Administration (Nida), says poor drainage management and deforestation are key factors.

"Hong Kong and Singapore face immense levels of rainfall each year, but there are no floods in those countries," he said.

"It's convenient for people to point fingers at nature. But even though rainfall this year has been heavy, it's actually manageable and shouldn't cause severe flooding. But here, the water levels have risen two- or three-fold."

Deforestation, Mr Adis said, has had a grievous effect on the ability of the country to absorb rainfall. As forests have given way to crop and animal farms, vulnerability to flooding has increased.

Mismanagement is another factor. Mr Adis notes that waterways from northern Thailand converge at Nakhon Sawan and Ayutthaya, in turn flowing into the Chao Phraya River and ultimately to the Gulf of Thailand.

Instead, more paths are needed to improve the efficiency of water drainage, he said.

Sasin Chalermlarp, secretary-general of the Seub Nakasathien Foundation, notes that Rangsit Canal should be used as a model in a rethink of water management strategy.

Rather than just storing water, the canal is used to gradually and systematically drain excess runoff into rivers. This prevents the canal from accumulating too much water if rainfall increases unpredictably, Mr Sasin said.

Thaweewong Sriburi, managing director of Chula Unisearch at Chulalongkorn University, argues that poor town planning is another contributing factor to the floods.

The past several decades have produced a buildup of infrastructure _ roads, houses and industrial estates _ that either impede natural waterways or take up space in low-level catchment areas that in the past helped mitigate flooding.

The seven industrial estates flooded in Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani, for instance, all are based in low-lying land that is a major flood basin running into the Chao Phraya delta.

"Years ago, I recommended zoning these areas to be exclusively reserved for agriculture and irrigation purposes. But I was laughed at," said Dr Thaweewong.

"State officials said that times had changed, and we had to allow factories there, even though they knew that doing so would limit the area available for reservoirs."

The industrial estates built embankments and installed water pumps, which in hindsight were inadequate to cope with the 12 billion cubic metres now spread across the central plains.

Mr Sasin of the Seub Nakasathien Foundation agreed that town planning strategies must change. Low-lying areas such as Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani are simply unsuitable for industrial estates, he said.

But given the vast industrial development already in the area _ Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani represent key clusters for the automotive, electronics and electrical goods sectors _ the only option now is to invest significantly in new infrastructure to guard against floods.

Mr Sasin suggested that roads impeding natural waterways be raised to facilitate water drainage.

Housing in the area must also be redesigned with flooding in mind, either by raising the level of living quarters or by digging canals and floodways to channel waterflows.

Dr Adis said water management needed to be examined from a national level, rather than on a provincial basis.

"I oppose having each province erect its own dykes," he said. "As one province builds flood walls, it only shifts the burden to other areas."

Instead, Dr Adis suggested that a new "Ministry of Water" be created to oversee construction of flood management systems.

"Water dykes currently are under control of each province. Those provinces with political weight have greater power at the expense of others," he said.

Suphan Buri, for instance, the stronghold of former prime minister Banharn Silpa-archa, helps manage water flow away from the Chao Phraya River to the Tha Chin River to the west.

Dr Adis said the inefficient drainage of flood water through the Tha Chin River was clearly politically motivated, putting greater stress on provinces to the south and the Chao Phraya River.

Of course, this year's crisis also stemmed from mismanagement of northern dams, which were reporting water levels near full capacity before seasonal rains began in July and August.

Thailand's dams have three core functions _ to mitigate flooding, store water for farm irrigation during droughts, and to generate electricity. Irrigation is the role of the Royal Irrigation Department, while power generation is controlled by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat).

Smith Dharmasarojana, former director-general of Thai Meteorological Department and currently the chairman of the National Disaster Warning Council Foundation, said the upper dams were simply mismanaged.

"The Irrigation Department and Egat reserved too much water when the rains arrived, which were prolonged and heavy. It was simply irrational," he said.

"These two agencies did not know the right amount of water that should be stored, how much was too much and when they should drain the water. Even now, with the country inundated with flooding, water continues to be discharged from the Bhumibol, Sirikit and Pasak Jolasid dams. Why?"

Mr Smith insisted the discharges are unnecessary, as each dams is sufficiently overengineered against cracks even when running a surplus.

"The water should be allowed to overflow from these dams naturally. When the flood recedes, we must figure out why the responsible state agencies did what they did," he said.

Another key lesson learned has been communications. The government's Flood Relief Operations Centre (Froc) and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) have both come under fire for their inaccurate, inconsistent and at times contradictory messages sent out to the public.

Mr Smith said local governments need to be more self-reliant on getting key information, and should not rely on the national government to act.

More public awareness programmes are needed to educate residents in flood-prone areas about how to protect themselves and their property. It should be incorporated into the official teaching curriculum.

And technology and lessons from the past need to be put to better use. After the 1983 flood, reams of studies were written about flood protection, leading to the development of numerous projects initiated by His Majesty the King.

This includes telemetry systems to monitor water levels and the direction and speed of floods.

"[The technology] represents a massive investment that has never been fully exploited," said Dr Thaweewong from Chulalongkorn University.

"Not only are we not using it, even worse, we are now relying on our naked eyes to determine if the dams are going to crack. Few people realise that Thailand has everything a country needs to forestall floods."


Writer: Bundit Kertbundit

Bangkok Post : Expert: Nature played the bigger role

• Published: 31/10/2011 at 12:00 AM
• Newspaper section: Business

Even though some are calling the current flooding crisis a man-made disaster, Chawalit Chantararat says human intervention for better or worse would have done little to change the outcome.

https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif Mr Chawalit and Team Group are proposing an ambitious ‘water motorway’ that would run along the east side of a planned third ring road around the capital region. Eight metres deep, 180 metres wide and 100 kilometres long with accompanying infrastructure, it would take seven years to complete and cost 220 billion baht. PATTANAPONG HIRUNARD

"The major cause of the recent floods can be attributed to nature's doings," said the managing director for water resources at the engineering consultancy Team Group.

"The amount of water this year is higher than average in normal years by 1.4 times in the region above the country and below the big dams in the country," he explained. "These large volumes of water followed a series of tropical storms and monsoon rains that began hitting the North and Central regions, oddly at the end of the monsoon season."

According to Team Group's estimates, water in the last five months totalled 41 billion cubic metres, while major dams collectively were able to retain only 11 billion cu m. Therefore, 30 billion cu m were left to gush down to add to whatever already existed in the lower regions.

Mr Chawalit also rejects criticism that flooding in provinces around Bangkok happened because of the government's efforts to channel water to other "scapegoat" areas to protect businesses in the capital.

"This is not the case at all, and this claim is not based on a correct understanding of the situation," he said. "Even if we let water come in to flood Bangkok, outer areas will still experience floods.

"Supposing we let water flood all over Bangkok in the same way as other places, like communists who treat people equally, either rich or poor, I would say that the water level will decrease by a few centimetres only and not more than 10 cm. Timewise, it may allow the water level to decrease faster by about one week.

"But we have to ask: are we not going to keep the heart [of Thailand] to function at all? We have to allow fingers, arms and legs to hurt a little for the economy of the country that has its heart in Bangkok. This is something that we have to help each other to maintain and sustain."

Other causes include rapid urban sprawl and the resulting race to construct embankments to protect new developments from floods, sometimes in competition with one another.

"For the last 30 years, we have spent a lot of our time altering our computer models to match the situation of man-made structures. Roads and dykes increase more and more in time, and we have to keep updating our model.

"We all have to fight for ourselves, and we live in a capitalist society in which those with more money can build stronger and higher embankments, so whichever area has the weakest embankments will be inundated first when water arrives. Nonthaburi officials rush to raise its embankment level because Bangkok just did so, and if they don't do it, then next time they probably won't get elected."

Another cause is weak town and city planning. One of the main problems is that influential people can bend policy to their own benefit.

"Some can turn the area designated as a green zone to a yellow commercial-use area; therefore, enforcement of town and city planning laws and regulations is important," Mr Chawalit said.

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Writer: Soonya Vanichkorn

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Originally Posted by sabang

OK, so he's elected (good, should be more of it)- but does that grant him a different legal status than any other provincial governor?

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Yes. Bangkok & Phuket have a degree of autonomous status - I don't know to what extent, but their governor's authority does override the National government in certain areas.

Other provincial governors are Interior Ministry Civil Servants and thus directly answerable to Central government (thus why they get transferred around such a lot!)

The sheer volume of rainwater and runoff this year would have caused flooding regardless (yes, even if Thaksin or Prem were in charge). The real question is what might have been handled better, how and if it could have been alleviated.

1- It seems the large upcountry dam's piled their rainwater high, to get a full load for the dry season as early as possible, and were left with virtually no capacity when the heavy rains came- thus requiring dumping it straight downstream, which does somewhat negate the purpose of having a dam. Little planning or co-ordination in evidence there.

2- Communication. To say it's got better in the last week is damning praise. It's been awful, basically. Fragmented, and often misleading. How can the Bangkok governor say "listen only to Me"?. For all I know, he may even have been right in some of what he said. But if you've got the local bigwig saying one thing, the national government another, who are you gonna listen to? The one you voted for?

3- Infrastructure. Obviously, totally inadequate. Investment required, feasibility studies required.

55555

55555

^^that's easy. greed on the part of developers and greed+corruption on the part of the planners.

And more importantly we all now that nothing has changed on this front. so any ideas that go along the path of building dykes and protective walls further out to include greater bangkok will ultimately fail in the same way that the current inner bangkok defences have. i.e bangkok will be allowed to expand unhindered into the new sacrificial flood lands outside the new dykes and walls.

Any solutions have to be resilient to the blind greed and corruption present in thai society.

Has anyone whispered in Yinglucks ear that Burberry is very passe'? :rolleyes:
That's wot chavs wear to Court. Terrible fashion error, even for a Thai.

There does appear to be a mismatch as to the management of the "dry season" water storage and the responsibility if a requirement arises to dump any surplus over the top.

I suspect somebody was covering there arse. This may well lead to finger pointing at an appropriate scapegoat in the future, or not, depending on their seniority.

55555

55555

55555

55555

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Originally Posted by DroversDog

The failures are deep in the past. Why did the BMA/and other local governments let people build outside HM's flood barriers in areas that are spill zones without making them build houses that are above the flood levies or build the proper protection around them.

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Related to that, see an article that can't be reproduced here.....

In Thailand, a battle royal with water

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Originally Posted by DroversDog

I wouldn't blame Thai culture for this as I have seen it in so called developed countries. Unfortunately for the people who suffer a 1 in a 100 year flood is it is the only real way to see the planning faults that may get somebodies attention.

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I would agree with you, very few countries resource themselves for 1:100 crises, its just not economic to do so. However thailand, does seem to be having issues with managing 1:10 year type weather with flooding resulting in significant economic losses in 1983,1995,2006 and now 2011.

My comment/dig thai culture is its ability to see many regulatory issues as being there purely for the purpose of collecting bribes rather than anything sensible. I will happily admit there are better examples out there, such as the planners and inspectors in seol, south korea.

^ You forgot last year.... Major flooding then, but sort of got lost in the reds burning down Bangkok news.

2008, 2000 & 2001 were bad as well, but localised.

Where is our uniquely caring Thai society? - The Nation

burning issue

Where is our uniquely caring Thai society?

Pravit Rojanaphruk
[at]PravitR November 2, 2011 2:01 am

After weeks of suffering perhaps the worst flood in a century and being inundated with selfish reactions, how many of us can still hold that Thailand is a uniquely caring and united society?

If you lived in a poor community like Klong Sam Wa and were told by politicians to endure waist-deep stinking water for nearly three months as "a sacrifice" just so others could remain dry, would you still believe in the myth of a uniquely caring Thai society?

Reports of these poor residents forming "mobs" to demand action because they have had enough made headline news yesterday. These angry folks won't settle for the opening of a sluice gate - they want a channel to be dug up so more water can be released downstream, to the possible detriment of richer parts of Bangkok, including the eastern industrial estates.

Is that fair? The answer depends very much on who you are.

So far, some 200 soldiers have been deployed to guard flood barriers in the northern parts of the capital as conflicts between flooded and non-flooded sides continue breaking out in provinces like Nakhon Pathom and Chachoengsao.

The past month or so has certainly tested the notion of a caring and united Thailand, with the stress and strain stripping this cherished idea to the point where can we see our society naked.

People have been selfishly hoarding masses of bottled drinking water and food, while cars are double- or even triple-parked on elevated roads with no regard to how it's affecting traffic. Then there is the constant bickering between the ruling Pheu Thai Party and opposition Democrats as both sides try to make the most out of this disaster, not to mention those who are so busy watching this political soap opera that they have no time to help. Adding to the spectacle are the movie stars and television hosts who see the floods as a chance to promote themselves.

In addition to all that, some shops are cashing in by selling basic necessities at marked up prices, while luxury malls seem to be too busy putting up plastic Christmas decorations to help raise funds for victims.

Nobody can deny that for every instance of selfishness, there are also examples of selfless sacrifice, but we need to ask ourselves one question: have the richer parts of Bangkok become so important that they need to be saved at the cost of Thailand's future?

In reality, rich folk can avoid the floods by taking refuge at posh beach resorts that charge Bt10,000 per night, which is more than a month's wage for most factory workers, some of whom have already lost their jobs to the floods. Others can fly abroad to escape the reality at home.

If people want to cling to the image of Thailand as a uniquely caring and united society, that's fine - but they must make it a reality through their actions. If you have already abandoned that image, or never subscribed to it in the first place, that's also fine. But it would be much appreciated if you would be kind enough not to cause any unnecessary burden at this stage.