While Thais are
accustomed and well adapted to the annual flood season, the
2011 flooding crisis was the worst in five decades and caught the entire nation
off guard.
The floods actually began in northern Thailand in May and
continued through mid-January, ultimately submerging 65 of Thailand’s 77
provinces, including seven major industrial estates north of Bangkok, leaving
more than 800 dead and 13.6 million affected. The World Bank ranked the flood
emergency as the world’s fourth most severe natural disaster in terms of
economic consequences.
The enormity of the crisis exposed the realities of
Thailand’s still nascent model for responding to natural disasters.
While the mainstream media was focused on the national election held on July 3,
2011, most Thais, especially those living in Bangkok, weren’t even
aware of the floods that had begun in the North.
The new government assumed office at the same time that
the floods began to spread to the central part of Thailand, which presented
immediate challenges to effectively managing the escalating crisis.
However, despite offers to help, the new administration
showed minimal openness to accepting international assistance and to engage
with civil society. However, the incident did reveal the power of citizens – in
particular, their ability to build a cohesive response to the crisis using
technology and social media.
Prior to the 2011 floods, the government, private sector,
and universities had designed and installed many flood and landslide early
warning systems to help monitor and warn of these natural disaster risks.
From a technical perspective, Thailand has the technology
to handle the floods. So, with this technology in place, why did the 2011 flood
emergency response measures unfold in such a seemingly chaotic manner?
Many agree that what was missing from the country’s emergency flood response
and relief agenda and mechanisms was a clear and consistent source of flood
information and a two-way communication system.
In early October 2011, when 25 provinces were already
submerged, the government set up a Flood
Relief Operation Centre (FROC) located in the Don Mueang Airport, with
the intention to work with all related ministries to immediately solve the
flood problem. The center provided flood information to the public via phone
hotlines and a website, ThaiFlood.com.
The website was first developed in cooperation with the
private sector and civil society, supported by a pool of IT experts and
volunteers. After some time, ThaiFlood.com announced its separation from FROC
due to conflicts involving information sharing and dissemination and
cooperation between the two entities. Citizens were increasingly frustrated to
find that official government flood bulletins and TV reporting were constantly
changing – reported to be under control at some points, while at other points
threatening to flood vast sections of Bangkok and its suburbs.
Even though FROC eventually improved its website by
providing more reliable and up-to-date information online, trust was undermined
and the public was reluctant to believe the information that it provided. In
contrast, Thai people instantly trusted the newly independent, volunteer run
ThaiFlood.com, which served as a clearinghouse for information provided on the
websites of other relevant ministries or departments and from independent
postings to Facebook and Twitter.
In retrospect, the problem was that the government
pursued these measures with limited engagement of civil society, civil
volunteers, the private sector, and the non-profit sector. The government was
limited in gathering urgent flood information and people couldn’t wait for its
help. Under these circumstances, citizens and civil society organizations began
to help themselves by recruiting volunteers to gather new information on
households in affected communities, and confirming the information that they
needed to secure proper assistance.
For example, The Asia Foundation supported the
establishment by the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC), made up of five
Worker Flood Relief Centers in Bangkok and neighboring flood affected provinces.
A TLSC volunteer group working at these five centers gathered information about
laborers who visited the centers and people living nearby, and set up a
donation section to distribute food supplies to people of the area, especially
those who didn’t have a house registered in the location, such as migrant
labors and workers who came from different provinces.
Social media such as Facebook and Twitter also played a
key role during the flood emergency. University students from different
institutions developed a Facebook page to provide information on ensuring the
safety of pets in the flood crisis. Users could find more information about the
flood situation from the flood-related professionals on their Facebook pages
and Twitter posts directly, including Seree Supratid, a lecturer on disaster
management of Rangsit University, and Sasin Chalermlarp, a secretary general of
Seub Nakhasathien Foundation. The Asia Foundation’s youth partners in the Deep
South also used Facebook to reconnect with their friends in other parts of
Thailand.
In light of these coordination issues, it’s undeniable
that the government, civil society organizations, NGOs, citizen volunteer
groups and private sector are keen to use technology. The government has a
greater role ahead to lead these numerous stakeholders to assess and build the
technology capacity of the country, if it is prepared and committed to assume
it.
Arpaporn Winijkulchai is The Asia Foundation’s film and
publication officer in Thailand. She can be reached at arpaporn@asiafound.org. The
views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not
those of The Asia Foundation. This piece was originally published on the Asia
Foundation website.
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