The Thai government of Yingluck Shinawatra has finally admitted the flooding of certain areas of Bangkok is inevitable.
Eastern parts of the city will be flooded in the next couple of days, as the government has no choice but to release a build up of flood waters that’s flowed down from the northern part of the country.
The flood waters will be diverted to the east of the city to save the main areas of Bangkok, particularly its heavily populated areas (roughly 10 million people) and its economic infrastructure. Areas expected to flood in the east of Bangkok are Sai Mai, Klong Sam Wa, Kannayao, Min Buri, Lat Krabang, Bang Khen and Nong Chok.
Yingluck says it is a “national crisis”.
Thousands of families will be evacuated, others will be warned to move their belongings to higher floors of their houses.
With 8 billion cu m of floodwater flowing from Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani towards Bangkok though, Yingluck Shinawatra’s government has no choice.
The water has to go somewhere and, as its natural flow has been blocked by the filling in of too many klongs, the building of roads, and massive amounts of buildings, its natural flow is now right into the middle of Bangkok.
Unfortunately, as always happens, people are threatening to sue the government if “their” house is flooded.
What they don’t seem to understand is, with so much water and nowhere for it to go, any rational government would divert as much as they could to less populated areas and to areas where hopefully the water will flow directly into the ocean.
In fact, any western government would make the same decision – a choice between flooding lesser populated areas with single or two-storey houses as oppose to flooding areas of a capital city populated by millions of people and with much of the country’s economic structure located there and, yes, they would do the same.
