Nothing 'can threaten Bangkok now'

Asst Prof Dr Sombat Yumeang of Chulalongkorn University's director of Center of GIS Research for Thailand on Tuesday night TNN 24 tv flood analysis sees nothing can threaten central and inner Bangkok now.

Even though Big Bag is allowed to act as a weir letting more floodwater in, the waterfowl rate poses no problem for Bangkok Metropolitan Authority's drainage capacity right now. More and more formerly flooded areas in Bangkok North are beginning to dry.

Dr Sombat said he could not see anything threaten Bangkok's inner and central areas now.

The dry residents should think about helping those who are still in need and suffering for us. All sandbags in inner cities should be donated to various organizations such as TV, Thai Red Cross. Volunteers are also needed to help distribute help to flood victims.

Turning to western front, Dr Sombat noted that BMA and Samut Sakhon cooperated well to make it possible for floodwater to flow unimpeded to various canals system down to the sea.

Floodwater may cross Rama II in some low-lying sections and then would be steered towards Khlong Mahachai's water retention area to be pumped into the sea.

Good news: Tha Chin river level is getting lower, now that high tide has passed.

Bad news: Pumps are breaking down left and right as they are working too hard, making it harder to drain water into Tha Chin river and other canals. 

More pumps should be moved from Bang Pakong river and other areas which have yet to see floodwater in great volume to Tha Chin river and other canals along Rama II Rd to help expedite waterflow.

Thai Floods May Take Months to Recede, Delaying Factory Restarts

Nov. 16 (Bangkok)- Thailand’s government said floodwater around Bangkok may take as long as two months to fully recede, threatening plans by companies including Western Digital Corp. and Sony Corp. to restart production.

Floodwater are still more than 2 meters (6.6-feet) deep around some factories in Ayutthaya province, and water levels at two industrial estates in Pathum Thani north of Bangkok are higher than protective dikes, hampering drainage efforts, Industry Minister Wannarat Charnnukul said yesterday.

Advancing waters have swamped seven industrial estates north of Bangkok with 891 factories, and threaten two others east of the capital where Honda Motor Co. and Isuzu Motors Ltd. have operations.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said that eastern Bangkok should be flood-free by the end of the year, while western districts may take longer to drain.

“We are still not confident about the western part of Bangkok because drainage is quite difficult,” Yingluck said. “We need to see area by area. For the east, we should be able to do it before the New Year.”

The damage from the nation’s worst floods in about 70 years has increased to an estimated 346.2 billion baht ($11.2 billion) and may curb economic growth by between 3.1 and 3.4 percentage points this year, the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce said on Nov. 10. 

The central bank said this month it may revise its forecast for 2.6 percent growth this year.

Yingluck has proposed spending 130 billion baht on reconstruction and steps to prevent future floods. She seeks to reassure investors that Thailand remains a safe place for business, as companies including Pioneer Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. scrapped profit forecasts after the floods shut factories.

Honda, Nikon

Four industrial estates near Ayutthaya, which house plants operated by Honda and Nikon Corp., may be able to resume operations next month, Wannarat said. They include Factory Land, Bang Pa-In, Hi-Tech and Rojana.

“We have made good progress and expect that about 70 percent to 80 percent of the total plants in four industrial estates should resume operations in December,” he told reporters after a weekly Cabinet meeting in Bangkok.

Rehabilitation of the Nava Nakorn and Bangkadi industrial zones in Pathum Thani province hasn’t yet started because water levels are too high, he said. The estates house plants operated by Western Digital, Sony, Toshiba Corp. and Nidec Corp.

“The water level at these two estates is still higher than the dikes,” Wannarat said. “They need to wait until water recedes to the same level as the dikes before starting to pump water out.”

Isuzu Production

Water levels have stabilized around the Bang Chan and Lad Krabang industrial estates in eastern Bangkok, and authorities are installing more water pumps to protect the facilities, Wannarat said.

Isuzu said yesterday it will restart production at Bang Chan on Nov. 21 as a parts shortage eases.

The floods have closed 891 factories in industrial estates that employed about 460,000 people, according to the Thai Industrial Estate and Strategic Partners Association.

Saha Rattana Nakorn, which houses a plant operated by Danish shoemaker ECCO Sko A/S and was one of the first industrial areas to be flooded, is still surrounded by 2.2 meters of floodwater, the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand said yesterday on its website. 

At Hi-Tech, water is 1.76 meters deep, while floodwaters at Bang Pa-In have fallen to 0.37 meter, the state agency said.

Bangkok Threatened

Authorities are diverting a slow-moving pool of water around Bangkok using a network of canals, dikes and sandbag barriers. 

The capital is prone to flooding because it sits at the southern tip of a river basin that empties into the Gulf of Thailand and has an average elevation of less than 2 meters above sea level.

At least 562 people have been killed since late July, when monsoon rains began lashing Thailand. Flooding worsened last month, when rainfall about 40 percent more than the annual average filled dams to capacity, prompting authorities to release more than 9 billion cubic meters of water.

The provinces of Nakhon Sawan, 218 kilometers (135 miles) north of Bangkok, and Ayutthaya, 78 kilometers from the capital, began flooding in early August. 

Floodwater eventually rose as high as 3 meters in Ayutthaya and took as long as three weeks to reach Bangkok’s outskirts.

Rice Farms

Agriculture Minister Theera Wongsamut said Nov. 10 that the dams didn’t release large volumes earlier because of concern rice farms may be flooded during the harvest. 

While Thailand’s fertile floodplains have helped the country remain the world’s biggest rice exporter for the past three decades, they also form a natural basin that slows the drainage of water through the Chao Phraya River toward Bangkok and the sea.

The nation’s largest dams are storing 64.9 billion cubic meters of water, or about 93 percent of their capacity, compared with 52.3 billion cubic meters at the same time last year, the Royal Irrigation Department said on its website yesterday.

Yingluck will discuss the government’s response to the floods with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when they visit Bangkok today.

“The water level has stabilized and drainage has improved,” Yingluck said. “But, it’s still difficult to say for the western part of Bangkok because there is still a lot of water in the area and we still have problems draining it.”

Phaya Thai flood alert a false alarm: BMA

City Hall cancelled evacuation alerts for residents living along Khlong Bang Sue in Phaya Thai district last night, citing inaccurate information.

Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) spokesman Wasant Meewong confirmed the evacuation alert had been withdrawn at 10pm, about three hours after City Hall issued the announcement.

"The evacuation order was a mistake. We apologize for the error," Mr Wasant said.

The order, signed by Bangkok governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra, warned residents living along Bang Sue canal in Samsen Nai sub-district of Bangkok's Phaya Thai district to leave their homes as water in the canal had risen rapidly.

The BMA yesterday also declared three additional communities in the Saphan Sung sub-district of Bangkok's Saphan Sung district under flood surveillance after water levels in nearby canals began rising.

The announcement for the sub-district remains in force.

Thai Floods Won’t Delay Minimum Wage Raise Plan, Kittiratt Says

Thailand’s government will proceed with a plan to raise the minimum wage to spur domestic spending even as companies face the cost of rebuilding after floods devastated industrial estates and shuttered businesses.

The government is considering measures to help companies recover from the disaster, including requests for additional tax incentives and a waiver of import tariffs to replace machinery, Deputy Prime Minister Kittiratt.

Na-Ranong said in an interview Nov. 12 in Honolulu, where he is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. The floods may reduce economic growth by as much as 3 percentage points this year, he said.

“I don’t see the wage hike as a suffering” for companies, Kittiratt said. “It would help increase the purchasing power for the domestic market for their businesses in Thailand. For the government, when these people consume more, we get more tax.”

Thai workers and employers agreed last month to a government proposal to boost the minimum wage, fulfilling a campaign pledge that helped propel Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to the role of the nation’s first female leader. 

The agreement will increase wage bills for manufacturers that have seen output tumble as floods swamped about 10,000 factories and stopped production at companies including Honda Motor Co.

Wages in Bangkok and six other provinces will rise to 300 baht a day by April 1, Somkiat Chayasriwong, the labor ministry’s permanent secretary, said last month. 

In the rest of the country, wages will rise an average of 40 percent by April 1 and then to 300 baht ($9.73) per day by 2013, with rates frozen at that level until 2015, he said.

Interest Rates

Thailand’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged at 3.5 percent for the first time this year at its October meeting. 

It had boosted borrowing costs nine times between July 2010 and August this year, more than any other major Asian economy after India.

Thai rates should be lower than the current level, Kittiratt said, citing Bank Indonesia’s decision to cut borrowing costs as an example. 

The Indonesian central bank reduced its benchmark rate by half a percentage point this month after a quarter-point reduction in October.

“I have all the reason to believe that the interest rate in Thailand should be coming down too,” Kittiratt said. “Even before the floods, I didn’t believe that the interest rate in Thailand had to be that high. 

If the interest rate in Thailand were to come down 1 percent in the following year, I’m not going to go against it.”

‘Hold or Cut’

The Bank of Thailand will use monetary policy to help revive the economy from the nation’s worst floods in almost 70 years, which may trim 2011 economic growth to less than 2.6 percent, Deputy Governor Suchada Kirakul said Nov. 8. The central bank’s stance on its key interest rate “should be hold or cut,” Suchada said.

Thailand’s inflation rate held above 4 percent for the seventh straight month in October as the floods destroyed crops and stoked food costs, according to government data.

Yingluck has proposed spending 130 billion baht to help flood victims and rebuild damaged roads, bridges and buildings. She has also set up committees to develop a long-term water management plan.

More than 70 percent of flood victims blame the government for poor preparation and communication, compared with 16 percent who were pleased with the response to the disaster, according to a Suan Dusit poll that surveyed 1,454 people in evacuation centers in Bangkok and its outskirts from Nov. 1 to Nov. 5. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.

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 swamping the homes of almost 15 percent of the country’s 67 million people, according to government data.

Although water is receding in northern provinces, floodwaters still threaten areas in Bangkok’s north, west and east, Yingluck said at the weekend.

“Thailand was not well prepared but now Thailand will be very well prepared because we can’t afford to see this repeated again in the following years,” Kittiratt said.

Bangkok Officials Say Thai Flood Threat Easing as Waters Recede

Bangkok officials said floodwater receded further in areas north and east of the Thai capital, easing concern that flooding will spread to the city’s business and tourist districts.

A 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) wall of sandbags has slowed the flow of water into northern districts, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration said today on its website. 

Floodwater are still threatening Thonburi on the western bank of the Chao Phraya River, the BMA said.

Authorities are maintaining a series of canals, dikes and sandbag barriers to divert a slow-moving pool of water around Bangkok, which sits on the southern tip of a river basin that empties into the Gulf of Thailand.

Water released from dams and higher-than-average rainfall swamped hundreds of factories north of the city last month, crippling global supply chains.

Floodwater in most of Bangkok should recede over the next two weeks if protective barriers hold and no significant volume of water flows toward the city, Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said yesterday.

At least 533 people have been killed since late July, when monsoon rains began lashing Thailand. Flooding 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.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday said there was a “slim” chance that the four-month-old flood crisis will worsen, as floods recede in provinces north of Bangkok and the city’s defenses hold.

Nakohn Sawan, Ayutthaya

The provinces of Nakhon Sawan, 218 kilometers (135 miles) north of Bangkok, and Ayutthaya, 78 kilometers from the capital, began flooding in early August. 

Waters eventually rose as high as 3 meters (9.8 feet) in Ayutthaya and took as long as three weeks to reach Bangkok’s outskirts.

Waters more than a meter deep have moved south through Bangkok over recent weeks, forcing the closure on Oct. 25 of the Don Mueang airport, which sits on the city’s northern edge and mostly handles domestic flights. 

Floodwater have reached as far south as Mo Chit, a station on the inner-city rail network known as the Skytrain.

Suvarnabhumi Airport and public transport links are still operating normally. The airport’s perimeter is protected by a 3.5-meter-high dike, according to Airports of Thailand Pcl.