Floods: Frustration Grows In Thailand

Thai authorities tried to stem growing anger among victims of catastrophic floods last Tuesday as water flooded new neighbourhoods and the government plotted a recovery aimed at securing the long-term confidence of investors.

The floods began in July and have devastated large parts of the central Chao Phraya river basin, killed nearly 400 people and disrupted the lives of more than two million.

Inner Bangkok, protected by a network of dikes and sandbag walls, survived peak tides on the weekend and remains mostly dry.

But large volumes of water are sliding across the land to the north, east and west of the city, trying to reach the sea and diverted by the city centre’s defences into new suburbs as they recede in others.

In one northeastern city neighbourhood angry residents have been demanding the opening of a sluice gate to let water out of their inundated community.

Residents jostled with police on Monday and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra ordered that the gate be opened by one metre.

But city authorities have warned that the flow through the sluice gate could move via a canal into large parts of the city which are now dry, including an industrial estate.

“We are opposed to it but the government has ordered the BMA to open the gate, so more water will come.

“It could reach the Bang Chan industrial estate. We have to see the consequences,” said Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) spokesman Jate Sopitpongstorn.

Yingluck’s government and the Bangkok authority represent opposing factions in Thailand’s strife-plagued politics.

The disaster has been the first big test for the government of Yingluck, the younger sister of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup.

Yingluck, a political novice, took over this year after an election that many Thais hoped would heal divisions that triggered street violence last year.

Saving Bangkok from a ruinous flood would be an important victory and the city’s 12 million people account for 41 per cent of Thailand’s gross domestic product.

Industry Minister Wannarat Channukul said the situation at the Bang Chan industrial estate and others including the Lat Krabang estate near Bangkok’s main airport was not critical.

But prolonged misery in outlying areas and heavily flooded provinces to the north would take the gloss off any victory for Yingluck, especially given a perception that those areas have been sacrificed to save the centre of the capital.