WHEN
the floods came, water gushed into Arunee Ninkaew's Bangkok home through the
pipes and through gaps in the tiled floor. A month later it is still there, now
a putrid grey breeding ground for insects.
Weeks of living above the stagnant,
foul-smelling floodwater, crammed into a single upstairs room with her diabetic
husband, elderly mother-in-law and grandson, have left her in despair.
Arunee said she wakes every morning with the
same feeling of hopelessness: "I think to myself 'When? When will the water
go?"'
Thailand's worst floods in half a century
devastated vast areas of the kingdom and have left more than 600 people dead.
They are receding in many areas, but for people in some of the capital's
suburbs, the misery continues.
The streets around Arunee's home in the
northern district of Don Mueang are still under a metre of green water, its
surface strewn with floating rubbish and glistening with petrol. The only way
to get around is by boat.
Local people say they have been forgotten by
authorities preoccupied with saving the shopping malls and skyscrapers of
downtown Bangkok.
As the floods swept south towards the capital
following months of heavy monsoon rains, huge flood barriers made of giant
sandbags were erected to keep the waters away from the city's commercial
districts.
This tactic kept the centre dry, but at a
cost: the walls have held the waters back in northern and western areas,
keeping them flooded since October.
Life in the city centre has largely returned
to normal since it became clear that it was likely to escape the waters.
Streets are bustling and the thousands of sandbags brought in to protect
buildings are looking ever more redundant.
But anger in the flooded suburbs is growing,
and there are now daily media reports of protests and people opening breaches
in the sandbag wall to try to let the waters drain away.
"I watch the news until I'm almost out of
my mind. I see in the city that it's almost dry and here nobody comes and sees
how high the water is. The government never cares and doesn't look after
us," Arunee told AFP at her flooded home.
The stench in the ground floor was
overpowering — sour and acrid, the smell of dirty water that has stood
motionless in tropical heat for a month.
In places its matt grey surface seethed with
insect larvae. Lizards scuttled up the mouldy walls in the darkness and there
were clouds of mosquitoes everywhere.
Arunee, her arms covered in insect bites, said
she had expected some flooding, but not on such a scale. "We never
expected it to be this much and we never expected it to be this long. We have
really suffered. It's really hard. We can't go anywhere."
The 48-year-old used to make a living selling
groceries and snacks but she has not been able to work since the floods came,
and her husband and mother-in-law have not even left the house.
Instead they survive on money sent by her son
and pass the time as best they can in the small first-floor room, sleeping and
watching TV.
Nearly 42,000 people are living in evacuation
shelters around Bangkok, but many people stayed in their homes. Arunee said
that of the 400 or so houses on her estate, 20 are still occupied.
Her neighbour Anuroj Jaisaard said the floods
were the worst he had known in more than 20 years of living in Don Mueang, and
he was shocked the disaster could have reached such a scale in a land used to
monsoon rains and annual inundations.
"I don't want to talk about politics
because if I start I won't stop," he told AFP, while fishing from the
first floor of his house. "But this is not a normal situation. This is not
natural. Someone has to take responsibility for this — someone has to take the
blame."
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has
declared central Bangkok safe from the floods, but Arunee urged her to do more.
"I want her to help so that the poor
people can go back to work. It's bad to be like this and it's not good that
nobody helps. We have been forgotten. This village has been forgotten,"
she said.
The government has begun pumping water away
from some of the worst-affected areas of the city.
Defence minister General Yutthasak Sasiprapa
said he was confident the floods would be gone before the end of the year and
urged people to be patient.
But for Arunee and her neighbours, the
possibility of yet another month under water is likely to test their
forbearance to the limit.
DAMON WAKE
AFP
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