Thai Floods Edge Closer to Central Bangkok

Floodwaters edged closer to central Bangkok today, reaching the northernmost station on the city’s inner-city rail system, as Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra warned the deluge may take as long as three weeks to drain.

“The amount of water is massive,” Yingluck said after visiting a flooded district on the city’s outskirts. “It may take two to three weeks for the water to drain to the sea, so we are asking people to be patient.”

Authorities completed a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) wall of sandbags along a canal north of Bangkok, part of a network of levees that are being used to help divert a slow-moving mass of water around the city center and protect industrial zones east of the capital, 

Yingluck said. Thailand’s floods have claimed 506 lives since late July and shuttered 10,000 factories in provinces north of Bangkok, disrupting global supply chains.

Floodwaters that forced the closure of one of the nation’s biggest shopping mall in the Ladproa district last week have continued moving south toward the city center, and may reach Din Daeng and Victory Monument, Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said on his official Facebook page late yesterday.

The monument, erected in 1941 to commemorate the Franco- Thai War, is a major traffic intersection northeast of the city center, and a stop on Bangkok’s elevated railway network known as the skytrain. Floodwaters reached the Mochit skytrain station yesterday, though operations weren’t disrupted, according to the government’s travel website.

Angry Residents

The Thai capital is facing a dual threat from floodwaters from the north and angry residents intent on tearing down defensive walls and the government’s so-called “big-bag” dike, Yingluck said.

“Please don’t destroy the big-bag dike and other barriers,” Yingluck wrote today on her official Facebook page. “Please think about the overall benefit so we can get through this problem together.”

Bangkok’s business districts of Silom and lower Sukhumvit Road remain dry and Suvarnabhumi Airport and public transport links are unaffected. The airport’s perimeter is protected by a 3.5-meter-high dike, Airports of Thailand Pcl said last week.

Evacuations have been ordered in almost a quarter of Bangkok’s 50 districts, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration said.

Floodwaters were as deep as 60 centimeters in Ladprao, the government’s Flood Relief Operation Command said in an e-mailed statement late yesterday. Water reached TMB Bank Pcl’s headquarters on Phaholyothin Road and flooding also affected Chatuchak market, the state agency said.

Monsoon Rains

The disaster worsened last month, when rainfall about 40 percent more than the annual average filled dams north of Bangkok to capacity, prompting authorities to release more than 9 billion cubic meters of water down a river basin the size of Florida, with Bangkok at its southern tip.

The deluge spread over 64 of Thailand’s 77 provinces, damaging World Heritage-listed temples in Ayutthaya province, destroying 15 percent of the nation’s rice crop and flooding the homes of almost 10 million people, according to government data.

The floods have already swamped seven industrial parks, halting production at factories operated by companies including Western Digital Corp. and Nidec Corp.

The Bank of Thailand, which last month slashed its 2011 economic growth forecast to 2.6 percent from 4.1 percent, expects expansion to slow as the global economy weakens and the impact of the nation’s flood crisis increases, according to the minutes of its Oct. 19 meeting.

Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation efforts have begun in parts of Nakhon Sawan province and will start soon in Ayutthatya as flood waters recede, Yingluck said yesterday. 

The government has an initial budget of more than 100 billion baht ($3.3 billion) to help rebuild damaged areas, she said, adding that Cabinet will discuss new measures to help the economy recover on Nov. 8.

“We can’t lose the battle this time,” Army chief Prayuth Chan-Ocha told reporters Nov. 4. “If we’re defeated, the damage to the country will be tremendous. Now we’re still fighting, but the enemy is massive.”

Suvarnabhumi Airport & Travel Warnings

Travel Warnings

“There have been cancellations from the leisure and corporate segments as well as events business,” he said. “Some local businesses have canceled events due to the fact that many of them have been affected directly with their own or their families’ homes being flooded.”

Group tours to Bangkok, particularly from China and Hong Kong, have been canceled following travel warnings, said the Tourism Council’s Piyaman. European groups are generally choosing to visit unaffected areas of Thailand, she said. Australia, China, Japan, Singapore and the U.K. are among nations that have advised against non-essential travel to Bangkok or other parts of Thailand.

Passengers are down a lot,” Piyasvasti Amranand, president of Thai Airways International Pcl (THAI), said at the Seoul conference. “No one wants to come to Thailand with travel warnings issued by so many countries.”

The floods have “affected badly” All Nippon Airways Co.’s operations, said Chief Executive Officer Shinichiro Ito.

Suvarnabhumi Airport

Bangkok’s main international airport, Suvarnabhumi, is protected by a 3.5-meter-high flood barrier, and has remained open throughout the flooding. The domestic airport at Don Mueang was shut on Oct. 25 as floodwaters covered the runway and began seeping into the terminal buildings.

Authorities last month released more than 9 billion cubic meters of water down a river basin the size of Florida, with Bangkok at the bottom after monsoon rains filled dams north of Bangkok to capacity. Rainfall this year has exceeded the average by about 40 percent, according to government data.

Airlines and hotels are hoping that that travel demand may rebound later in the month and into December as floods ease and as the end of year holidays approach. Shangri La, Bangkok and Swissotel Nai Lert Park both said they were optimistic that bookings may pick up, even if they fall short of predictions made earlier in the year.

Cathay’s Slosar also said the airline was hoping the disruptions will end before Christmas and the New Year, when flights are usually fully booked.

“You will find people going back,” said Tan Chik Quee, Singapore Airlines’ senior vice president of marketing. “We don’t expect to see any problem toward the year-end holidays.”

Bangkok Tourists Vanish on Floods Leaving Shangri-La Bar Empty

Saijai Sooksai kills time by arranging and rearranging T-shirts imprinted with Ferrari and Ralph Lauren logos at her street side stall in Bangkok’s main tourist district. She has little else to do as Thailand’s record floods deter visitors.

“Business is really bad as tourists from Europe and the Middle East have almost all vanished,” said Saijai, who has run a stall on Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Road near the Nana area for more than a decade. “I should be easily getting 10,000 baht ($326) a day this time of year, but now I earn only a couple of hundred some days not even enough to cover my rent.”

While central Bangkok has avoided flooding so far, hotels and office buildings have erected walls of sandbags to protect against waters that have killed more than 500 people nationwide.

The threat has also deterred tourists, forcing Singapore Airlines Ltd. and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. to cut flights, hitting reservations at Shangri-La Asia Ltd. hotels and contributing to the central bank cutting its growth forecast.

“The leisure business has disappeared for the time being,” Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Officer John Slosar said on Nov. 4 at an airline association meeting in Seoul. “If you have an option to go, probably you won’t because nobody can quite tell what you’ll get when you get there.”

The airline has cut one of its five daily services to Bangkok, and is only filling about 50 percent of seats on its remaining flights, he said. Normally, the flights would be around 80 percent full, he said. Disruptions may not last long, he said.

Sukhumvit Still Dry

The flood waters haven’t directly affected Bangkok’s main tourist-shopping hub of Sukhumvit and Rachaprasong or the Silom business district. Other popular Thai holiday destinations such as the beach resorts of Phuket and Koh Samui have also avoided flooding.

“You see here, there isn’t even a drop of floodwater,” said Saijai, 54, the Sukhumvit stall owner. “The media have painted an exaggerated picture of the floods to the world.”

The floods have spread across 64 of Thailand’s 77 provinces over the past three months, shuttering 10,000 factories. Bangkok supermarkets have also run short of necessities, such as rice, instant noodles, eggs and bottled water, because of hoarding and supply-chain disruptions.

Cancellations at Bangkok hotels have accelerated in the past week as concerns about flooding prompt customers to alter plans for meetings, weddings, events and holidays, said Prakit Chinamourphong, president of the Thai Hotels Association, which represents about 765 of the nation’s 4,000 hotels.

Occupancy Rates Slide

Occupancy rates in Bangkok fell to about 60 percent in October from as much as 75 percent a year earlier, he said. The level may drop to 70 percent in November, from as much as 85 percent in previous years, he said.

“I’m worried that no one can guarantee floods will not enter inner Bangkok,” he said. The government has bolstered levees and built a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) wall of sandbags to hold back the floodwaters in the capital.

Occupancy levels began declining on Oct. 23 and that was followed by a decrease in average room rates, said STR Global, an industry researcher. The Bank of Thailand on Oct. 28 slashed its economic growth forecast for this year to 2.6 percent from 4.1 percent.

The floods may cut domestic tourism revenue by at least 10 billion baht, said Piyaman Tejapaibul, chairwoman of the Tourism Council of Thailand. The council has yet to estimate the impact to revenue from overseas tourists, worth about 600 billion baht annually, she said.

Tourism accounts for about 7 percent of Thailand’s gross domestic product, according to government data.

Shangri La

Yesterday, the bar and lobby lounge at the Shangri La Hotel, Bangkok, which sits on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya, were almost deserted, with only one family dining in an area that seats more than 100. Sandbags have been erected outside the main doors and by side entrances, and the hotel has water pumps on standby in the event the river spills over its banks at high tide.

Occupancy levels are less than half the expected 76 percent rate, primarily because of a drop in conference and business bookings, said spokeswoman Rashana Pimolsindh. The hotel is also posting twice-daily updates about water levels on its website and Facebook page, she said.

There has also been a dip in bookings at the Swissotel Nai Lert Park, near the Central Chidlom shopping mall, said General Manager Torsten Pinter. The property hasn’t been affected by flooding, he said.

Airport flooded

Hundreds of thousands of people have had to leave their homes in the capital

The waters have now reached the Chatuchak market, a major outdoor shopping centre and tourist attraction north of the business district.

Many of the thousands of storeholders have followed official advice and temporarily shut up shop.

"There will be no-one able to come around to sell and to buy. So, doesn't make sense to keep the market open," Tinnakorn Rujinarong, deputy director of the market, told the Reuters news agency.

But others have refused to close, saying they could not risk losing what trade there was.

"When tourists come here to find this place closed down for too long, they will not come back again. And it will take a long time to bring the market back to booming again," said one food stall trader.

The city's second airport, Don Muang, is under water but the main international airport at Suvarnabhumi and the city's transport system are still operating.

Emergency workers are continuing to distribute sandbags and attempting to divert the water through canals.

However some residents on the edges of Bangkok have accused the authorities of sacrificing their homes to save the commercial centre.

Thailand flooding death toll 'tops 506, 2 Missing

Floodwater is continuing to spread through Thai Capital of Bangkok and death 506 , missing 2

The number of people killed by months of flooding in northern Thailand has risen to more than 500, officials say.

Three months of heavy rain have affected about a third of Thailand's province, destroying farmland and forcing tens of thousands from their homes.

Large parts of the capital Bangkok are also flooded and there are fears the city center could yet be worse hit.

The government has announced a 100bn baht ($4bn: £2.5bn) recovery plan.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said the money would be used to rebuild homes and businesses and restore the economy, which has been badly affected.

"The work must be completed in 45 days because people have suffered for so long already," the Bangkok Post quoted Ms Yingluck as saying.

She asked for public understanding as the government tackles the disaster, saying: "I admit that this task has really exhausted me, but I will never give up."

The authorities have come under criticism for what is perceived as a slow response to the flooding, and for giving conflicting advice about evacuations.

The waters are now receding in the north of the country but Department of Prevention and Mitigation said on Sunday that 506 people were now known to have died since July.

The BBC's Rachel Harvey in Bangkok says doubts are growing again about whether the authorities will be able to protect the capital.

The city, which is cross-crossed by rivers and canals, has been threatened by encroaching water for weeks as the floods drain towards the sea.

Nobody has died in the capital, but a fifth of the city is now under water and tens of thousands of residents of eight of the 50 districts have been told to leave their homes.

Rows between the government and the Bangkok administration about how to handle the crisis have undermined public confidence in their efforts, says our correspondent.

On Saturday, Bangkok governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra warned that the city authorities would throw out the central government's flood management plan and bring in their own unless co-operation between the two agencies improved, the Bangkok Post reports.

There are growing concerns about the health problems of large amounts of polluted water - which is up to chest height in some areas - flowing through the densely populated city.

Daily News Editorial

The Royal Thai Police Office (RTPO) must step up its crime prevention and suppression operations in flood-hit communities. As a large number of people have left for temporary shelters, burglars are roaming several flooded neighborhoods looking for valuables and anything that they can sell.

We condemn these thieves, who are rubbing salt into the wounds of flood victims. As all districts in Bangkok are likely to be flooded this month, the Metropolitan police should mobilize marine police to patrol residential areas that are considered prone to burglary.

All Bangkok police stations have already assigned their personnel to support the flood-relief operations during the past two months. They join forces with soldiers and volunteers to conduct search-and-rescue operations and bring the sick and elderly to hospital.

The extra workload has affected the routine work of the City police. Complaints have been made about the absence of regular police patrols in some parts of Bangkok that are not flooded.

The RTPO may solve this problem by setting up a hotline manned by personnel attached to its headquarters in Bangkok. Rapid deployment units may be set up to respond to cases of emergency. This way, members of the public will feel more secure and not be afraid that burglars will break into their homes.

Thailand Floodwaters Threaten Bangkok Industry

Thai people paddle past a Toshiba factory partially-submerged at Bangkadi Industrial Park in Pathum Thani province on October 21, 2011.

Thai floodwater today will test barriers protecting two Bangkok industrial parks near the main international airport as a deluge that has swamped hundreds of factories over the past month courses through the capital.

A water mass north of Bangkok should reach Lat Krabang and Bang Chan industrial zones in the eastern part of the city, according to Jate Sopitpongstorn, a spokesman for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. The estates include a factory operated by Honda Motor Co., which abandoned its full-year profit forecast last week after another factory was flooded.

“The water will be there for sure,” Jate said by phone yesterday. “Lat Krabang has a high potential for flooding, but we hope the protection we put inside, 3 meters high, can protect and hold the water.”

The renewed threat to factories may worsen the impact of floods that have prompted the central bank to slash its 2011 economic growth forecast and disrupted global supply chains. Floodwaters edged closer to Bangkok’s central business district at the weekend, reaching the northernmost station on the city’s elevated rail system.

“The amount of water is massive,” Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said after visiting a flooded district on the city’s outskirts yesterday. “It may take two to three weeks for the water to drain to the sea, so we are asking people to be patient.”

Floodwaters have already inundated seven industrial estates with 891 factories that employed about 460,000 people, according to the Thai Industrial Estate and Strategic Partners Association. Lat Krabang, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) north of Suvarnabhumi airport, houses 231 factories employing 48,000 workers, including those operated by Unilever, Isuzu Motors Ltd. and Cadbury Plc.

Factories ‘At Risk’

“The enormous amount of water that you see still on the satellite maps north of Bangkok has to flow in one way or the other around the city,” said Adri Verwey, a specialist with Deltares, a Netherlands-based research institute, who is advising the government. “It will move on to a considerable depth around these estates. They are very much at risk.”

Suvarnabhumi and public transport links are still operating as normal. The airport’s perimeter is protected by a 3.5-meter- high dike, Airports of Thailand Pcl said last week.

The Thai capital is facing a dual threat from floodwaters from the north and angry residents intent on tearing down defensive walls, Yingluck said yesterday. The government finished the construction of a “big bag dike” consisting of large sandbags that should stem the flow of water into northern parts of the capital, she said.

Evacuations

“People still see water because we try to slow down its flow to make it drain through canals,” Yingluck said yesterday. “There are two main tasks now. First is managing water and the second is to take care of three million people who are affected.”

Waters more than a meter deep have moved south through Bangkok, forcing Yingluck last week to evacuate her flood operations command at Don Mueang airport, which sits on the city’s northern edge and mostly handles domestic flights. The government has ordered evacuations in 30 percent of the capital’s 50 districts, mostly northern, eastern and western areas.

City officials are aiming to halt the water’s advance at the Sam Sen canal, which runs just above Victory Monument, a major traffic intersection northeast of the city center and a stop on Bangkok’s elevated railway network known as the Skytrain, Jate said. The central business areas of Silom and lower Sukhumvit are protected by two canals where water can be drained out through the Chao Phraya river, he said.

‘Hope’

“We still have hope that the inner city central business district will not be affected at the moment,” Jate said.

The Bank of Thailand, which last month slashed its 2011 economic growth forecast to 2.6 percent from 4.1 percent, expects expansion to slow as the global economy weakens and the impact of the nation’s flood crisis increases, according to the minutes of its Oct. 19 meeting.

Rehabilitation efforts have begun in parts of Nakhon Sawan province and will start soon in Ayutthaya as flood waters recede, Yingluck said Nov. 5. The government has an initial budget of more than 100 billion baht ($3.3 billion) to help rebuild damaged areas, she said, adding that Cabinet will discuss new measures to help the economy recover on Nov. 8.

The disaster worsened last month, when rainfall about 40 percent more than the annual average filled dams north of Bangkok to capacity, prompting authorities to release more than 9 billion cubic meters of water down a river basin the size of Florida, with Bangkok at its southern tip.

Flooding this year has affected 64 of Thailand’s 77 provinces, damaging World Heritage-listed temples in Ayutthaya province, destroying 15 percent of the nation’s rice crop and flooding the homes of almost 15 percent of the country’s 67 million people, according to government data.

Floods creeping towards bus terminals, subway stations, train lines in Bangkok

People get on a bus at an inundated street in Thai capital Bangkok Nov. 6, 2011

Floodwaters continued to spread in Bangkok, crossing Lat Phrao intersection and beginning to creep towards nearby bus terminals, subway stations and sky train stations.

Although it is on the edge of being flooded, Mor Chit bus terminal, a gateway to northern and northeastern parts of the country, is still operational. Likewise, the subway and sky train stations in the affected area are still operating normally.

According to Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand, all 18 subway stations remained providing services as usual but two of them -- Ratchadapisek and Phaholyothin -- are under closed watch as floodwater keep rising and overflow the first step of the stations' entrance.

Since late Saturday, a two-lane road underneath the Mor Chit sky train station has been inundated but its service has not yet been affected.

The metro stations are protected against two-meter high floods. Floods of 3.5 meters above mean sea level. The sky train service is still available if flood waters rise up to two meters. However, both subway and train services would not be able to continue if the water is higher than two meters.

The outer part of northern Bangkok has started to flood during the last week of October and floodwater have continued to move to inner city. Until present, 13 districts of Bangkok's overall 50 districts have been affected. Authorities have ordered evacuation in eight districts while seven others are under closed watch, forcing some 11,000 evacuees to take shelters at evacuation centers across the city.

Heavy monsoon rains and tropical storms have fueled the country worst floods in over 50 years since late July. More than 500 people were confirmed dead in flood-related incidents while some 9. 4 million suffered. Indulge in the capital city could raise damage cost up to 23 billion to 28 billion U.S. dollars, the recent estimation said.

Thai flood-affected people suffer most from rising price: survey

A recent survey shows on Sunday that 72.6 percent in Thailand's flood-hit areas suffer most from rising food prices.

ABAC Poll conducted the survey from Nov. 1 to 5 on 1,478 flood- affected people both inside and outside evacuation centers in Bangkok and its vicinity.

People are most satisfied with the military in delivering help and grade them 9.5 out of 10.

Another 66.3 percent of the respondents in evacuation centers want the government to create database of flood-hit people so as they could receive financial aid after floods subside.

As for what people expect from the administration for flood aftermath, 65 percent of the respondents want their houses repaired with the government's assistance.

The country's worst floods in over half a century have left at least 500 people dead and more than 9.4 million others affected in 64 flood-stricken provinces or over four-fifths of the whole nation.

Tens of thousands of factories have been inundated, putting over 600,000 people on the risk of loosing their jobs.

Thai Chamber of Commerce estimated flood-caused damage at 20 billion to 23 billion U.S. dollars if the overall areas in capital city of Bangkok are submerged as the city's gross domestic product is about 36 billion U.S. dollars.

Some 20 percent of the city in northern, eastern and western areas has already been swamped and the inner city is likely to be flooded.

Thai floods affect 20,000 firms, leaving 5,300 jobless

More than 5,000 people have lost their jobs as more than 20,000 companies in 16 provinces had been hit by floods, Bangkok Post daily newspaper reported on Saturday.

Athit Ismo, the director-general of the Labour Ministry's Department of Labour Protection and Welfare, said more than 20,000 companies employing over 790,000 people in 16 provinces had been hit by floods.

Flooded firms have laid off more than 5,300 employees, including workers in Bangkok and central province of Nonthaburi, said Athit.

Floodwater has not yet reached Bangchan Industrial Estate in Bangkok's eastern Min Buri district. About 60 percent of factories in the estate are operational while the rest have halted production, he said.

Earlier all seven industrial estates were under water, costing economic damage of at least 4.9 billion U.S. dollars. Five are in Ayutthaya, the Hi-Tech, Bang Pa-in, Rojana and Factoryland parks, while the other two, Nava Nakorn and Bangkadi, are in Pathum Thani province, north of Bangkok.

In the meantime, 10 Japanese companies with flooded production facilities in Thailand plan to send around 2,000 Thai workers to Japan to work there temporarily, said permanent secretary for labour Somkiat Chayasriwong.

More than 720 Japanese companies in Thailand have been affected by the flood crisis. Among them, 450 companies are in industrial estates.

Some of the larger Japanese firms planned to send their workers to Japan. The move would enable their Thai workers to earn wages, and also help their Japanese employers increase productivity during the flooding crisis.

Ten Japanese firms sought permission from the Japanese government recently to send 2,000 Thai employees to work temporarily in Japan for six months, according to the Bangkok Post.

The country's worst floods, caused by heavy monsoon and overflow from several dams in upper part of the country, in nearly 60 years has claimed more than 400 lives and affected almost 10 million people since mid July.

Thailand's flood death toll exceeds 500

People wade through floodwater at an inundated street in Thai capital Bangkok Nov. 6, 2011. Thailand's worst floods have left 506 people dead and 2 missing, Thai Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation reported on Sunday.

Thailand's worst floods have left 506 people dead and 2 missing, Thai Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation reported on Sunday.

The flooding situation has receded in some upstream provinces but still prevails in 25 provinces in northeastern and central regions including the capital Bangkok city, affecting some 1.2 million household or 3.2 million people.

For its parts, 13 out of 50 districts in the capital city have been swamped, putting the inner city at the risk of being flooded. Some 11,000 evacuees are staying at shelters across the city.

The country's worst floods have continued since late July, affecting more than 9.4 million in 64 flood-stricken provinces or over four-fifths of the whole nation. Tens of thousands of factories have been inundated, leaving over 600,000 people on the risk of loosing their jobs.

The flood-caused damage was estimated at 20 billion to 23 billion U.S. dollars if the overall areas in the capital city of Bangkok are submerged. The city's gross domestic product is about 36 billion U.S. dollars. Some 20 percent of the city in northern, eastern and western areas has already been swamped and the inner city is likely to be flooded.