Bangkok Residents on Evacuation Alert as Tidal Surge Boosts Flood Threat

By Supunnabul Suwannakij - Oct 30, 2011 12:45 PM GMT+0700

Thai authorities warned people living near canals in Bangkok’s northern suburbs to prepare to evacuate as rising floodwaters and high tides threaten to overwhelm barriers protecting the city.

“We have to fight for two more days as sea levels are unlikely to exceed today’s peak after that time, and we can concentrate on protecting the barriers,” Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told reporters in Bangkok today. “If we don’t get more rain, the situation shouldn’t get worse.” A five-day holiday through Oct. 31 may be extended to allow residents to leave threatened areas, she said.

Yingluck yesterday said floodwaters in Nakhon Sawan and Ayutthaya provinces north of Bangkok have started to recede, and rebuilding is beginning in some areas. She warned that high tides until Oct. 31 makes this “a critical period” for the capital, where officials are monitoring dikes and canals that are being used to drain floodwaters through the city to the Gulf of Thailand 30 kilometers (19 miles) to the south.

The flooding in Bangkok is mainly limited to northern and eastern areas in the capital and low-lying places near canals and rivers. Some of the city’s major tourist attractions, including the Grand Palace and Chatuchak market have experienced minor flooding, while the main business districts of Silom and lower Sukhumvit remained dry, with barriers of sandbags protecting many office buildings and shops.

‘Confident’

“We are confident that not all of Bangkok will be affected, especially the central business district,” Jate Sopitpongstorn, spokesman for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, said today by phone. “If areas of inner Bangkok do get affected, it won’t be severe like we saw in Ayutthaya and Nakhon Sawan.”

Confusion over the severity of flooding has fueled panic in the capital, leading to shortages of bottled water, eggs and baby formula as the worst floods since 1942 reach Bangkok. Dikes north of the city are holding back a three-meter-deep wall of water that has inundated about 10,000 factories, disrupting the supply chains of companies including Honda Motor Co. and Western Digital Corp.

Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport is operating normally and the company that operates the facility is “confident” that it can be protected from flooding, Somchai Sawasdeepon, senior executive vice president of Airports of Thailand Pcl, said Oct. 28. Still, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and Singapore Airlines Ltd. have both canceled some Bangkok flights as the waters deter visitors.

Toll Rises

Rainfall about 25 percent greater than the 30-year average filled upstream dams to capacity, prompting authorities to release large amounts of water earlier this month down a flood plain the size of Florida, where Bangkok at its bottom tip has an average elevation of just 2 meters above sea level. Authorities are aiming to drain the water around the city and through its 1,682 canals.

Since July, flooding has killed 381 people and affected 9.9 million more in 63 provinces, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said on its website today. Twenty-six provinces are still experiencing flooding, it said.

The central bank last week cut its forecast for economic growth this year as the floods take a toll on manufacturing and tourism. Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy may expand 2.6 percent in 2011, down from an earlier forecast of 4.1 percent, and 4.1 percent next year, the Bank of Thailand said.

Bangkok authorities are concentrating efforts on draining water through the Rapipat and Hok Wa canals, Yingluck said today. Tidal surges may still threaten riverside communities until sea levels decline early this week, she said.

Protecting Levees

“We’re worried about the levees along canals and ask for cooperation from people not to destroy them because it will make water management even more difficult,” she said. Residents in some flooded areas have torn down levees to allow water to flow to unaffected areas.

People living near canals that run through northern Bangkok districts including Sai Mai, Bang Khen, Lak Si, Chatujak, Lad Prao, Huay Kwang, Don Mueang and Wang Thong Lang should prepare to evacuate as a large volume of floodwaters arriving from northern provinces pushed up water levels, the city’s Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said late yesterday.

The Chao Phraya river running through the middle of Bangkok broke a record by swelling to 2.53 meters above the mean sea level, or 27 centimeters below the government’s main barriers, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration said on its website today. The tide reached 1.30 meters above the mean sea level at 10:21 a.m. today, and may be 1.27 meters tomorrow morning, it said.

“We still have reports of an ongoing and continuous increase in water levels from the north and east,” said Jate of the BMA. “There is not a substantial amount of good news, but we are confident that what we are doing at the moment can handle the situation.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Supunnabul Suwannakij in Bangkok at ssuwannakij@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at ptighe@bloomberg.net