Parts of Bangkok received nearly 300mm of rain in just two days, roughly London's average for six months. Citing Britain's The Guardian, Dainik Bangla reports that the Thai government has declared a flood disaster in all 50 of the capital's districts.
Government figures put flood-related deaths at about 40, some by drowning and some by electrocution. Thousands of people are in more than 230 shelters across the city. Sulimas Kurangkul, 73, said this rain was nothing like a normal evening storm but fell day and night; the ground-floor stairs of her home are still under water.
Khlong Chan, a 1970s housing estate in north-east Bangkok, became a symbol of the disaster, with only car roofs visible above brown water, though by Thursday the authorities had pumped out the worst of it. At Suvarnabhumi airport, about half of Thai Airways' staff could not get to work, thousands of bags piled up and some flights were cancelled. Many schools are closed.
Built on the flood-prone plain of the Chao Phraya river, Bangkok relies on canals, pumps and dykes to drain water, but concrete development has destroyed much of its canal network. Naim Laeni, a consultant working on the city's flood resilience, said the authorities probably underestimated the intensity of several days of rain: the drainage canals usually handle about 60mm an hour, up to 80mm in upgraded sections, but local falls were heavier and back-to-back rain left no time to drain.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters that floodwater coming from the north still threatens the metropolitan area, and an emergency control room has been set up. The weather agency forecasts more heavy rain next week. Scientists say extreme floods are already rising in South-east Asia and that warming from fossil fuels can make heavy rain more intense, since warmer seas evaporate more water and warmer air holds more moisture.
Photo: NASA Earth Observatory / Wikimedia Commons (public domain), satellite image of the Chao Phraya basin in the 2011 floods
Source: Dainik Bangla
Comments
(0)