Thailand - Flood crisis forces Thai PM to stall trip

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has postponed a trip to Malaysia and Singapore, as her two-month-old administration struggles to cope with the country's worst floods in 50 years.

The Premier was due to visit Malaysia tomorrow and Singapore on Wednesday as part of her introductory round of Asean countries, but pushed back the trip as Bangkok continued to come under considerable threat from water released from swollen reservoirs in the north.

"We have to admit that this is more serious than in the past," she said in a televised address just before the weekend, adding that parts of northern and north-eastern Bangkok were especially vulnerable. "This will have a direct impact on Bangkok."

Yesterday, she told Thais in a radio address that as much as 7 billion cubic m of water was flowing towards Bangkok from Thailand's northern provinces, and was likely to cause "damage in a wide area" north of the capital.

Adding to the threat is high tide in the coming days, and the fact that the Chao Phraya river is swollen almost to the limits of its flood walls in the capital.

The floods, the result of more than two months of unusually heavy monsoon rains, have been described by Justice Minister Pracha Promnok, director of the National Flood Relief Centre, as a national crisis.

In response, the authorities have been pulling out all the stops to reduce the threat to the capital. They have been installing up to 400 additional pumps to drain Bangkok's canals more quickly into the main river, and are also digging seven additional ones on the capital's outskirts.

They are also deploying boats to help speed up the flow of floodwaters to the sea by gathering on the river and revving their engines in the same direction. Bangkok's Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra even conducted a religious ceremony to ask the gods to stop the floods.

The government has also asked the army for up to 100,000 additional sandbags to block the flow of floodwaters in Pathum Thani province, but there were some reports of a growing shortage of sand.

Bangkok residents in vulnerable areas, meanwhile, have been rushing to move their cars and belongings to higher ground, and stockpiling food supplies.

The authorities said the focus of the government's efforts would shift from flood prevention to evacuation of vulnerable residents, but denied that saving the capital from flooding comes at the expense of Ayutthaya province, where vast swathes of fields, villages, a world heritage temple site and at least two industrial estates have been inundated.

Most of the 100 or so factories - producing a range of products from auto parts to electronics and food and beverages - in the country that have been shut down by flooding or disruptions in supply are located in the ancient capital north of Bangkok.

Reports said companies affected included Canon, Honda, Danish shoemaker Ecco and Japanese food and beverage producer Ajinomoto. Views from Thai media helicopters showed factories submerged in water halfway to their roofs.

More companies are also scrambling to evacuate the Rojana Industrial Park in Ayutthaya's Uthai district, where a makeshift flood barrier collapsed on Saturday. Pumps were being deployed to drain the industrial estate even as the waters continued to rise yesterday.

A hospital in the city was reportedly under 2m of water and patients and staff had been evacuated, reports said.

In Bangkok, the city authorities yesterday rushed to open 80 evacuation centres in nine districts, many of them in schools.

A week ago, the government set up a special command centre at Bangkok's Don Muang airport to organise the response to the floods, and on its first day received more than 20,000 calls on its flood crisis hotline. The centre has called for donations of rice, food, medicines and cooking utensils for displaced people.

China has said it will donate US$1 million and supplies, while the United States said it will chip in with 3 million baht (US$96,978).

Official figures show that the floods have so far displaced an estimated 2.6 million people and damaged nearly 10 per cent of Thailand's rice lands. At least 253 people have also died in flood-related accidents.

Nirmal Ghosh

The Straits Times

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