Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra moved to slow water flowing through a canal on Bangkok’s outskirts, two days after she ordered it opened to end protests from residents in flooded areas of the capital.
Water gates on the Sam Wa canal in northeastern Bangkok will be narrowed to reduce the volume of floodwater flowing into eastern areas of the city, Yingluck said yesterday. Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra earlier this week ordered police to protect the levee from local residents who damaged part of it to ease flooding around their homes.
Bangkok officials are struggling to maintain a system of dikes, canals and sandbag barriers designed to divert a slow- moving mass of floodwater around the city center. Floods that spread over 63 of Thailand’s 77 provinces over the past three months have killed 437 people and shuttered 10,000 factories north of Bangkok, disrupting global supply chains.
“We will have teams of people to negotiate with residents and try to seek cooperation from them,” Yingluck said. The levee is north of Bang Chun and Lat Krabang industrial estates, home to factories operated by Honda Motor Co. and Unilever, and connects to a canal that runs near downtown business areas.
The government is balancing the need to protect an area that accounts for about half of Thailand’s industrial output with demands from residents to drain water from parts of outer Bangkok where homes have been inundated for weeks.
Sony, Nidec
Yingluck said water is receding in areas north of Bangkok, where floods swamped seven industrial parks, halting production at factories operated by companies including Honda, Western Digital Corp. and Nidec Corp. Sony Corp. yesterday said supply chain disruptions in Thailand will delay the introduction of high-end NEX and Alpha cameras, and erode annual profit by 25 billion yen ($320 million).
The Bank of Thailand, which last week 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 released yesterday. Thailand’s inflation rate held above 4 percent for the seventh straight month in October as food costs climbed, government data released Nov. 1 show.
Bank of Thailand policy makers “were concerned about the impact of the still-evolving flood situation, especially on production in key export sectors including rice, automobile, electronics and electrical appliances, as well as tourism, all of which were already feeling the effects of a weaker global economy,” according to the minutes.
Inner-City Dry
Flooding in the capital is mainly limited to northern and eastern areas and low-lying places near canals, while the business districts of Silom and lower Sukhumvit remain dry, and Suvarnabhumi Airport and public transport links are unaffected. Shortages of bottled water, eggs and instant noodles have eased after retailers imported products, Permanent Secretary for Commerce Yanyong Phuangrach said this week.
Thailand’s flood crisis began in late July, when monsoon rains 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 the bottom. Rainfall this year has exceeded the average by about 40 percent, according to government data.
The death toll from the disaster rose to 437, according to the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. Twenty- five provinces are still affected by flooding, the agency said on its website today.
Water Levels Rise
Water levels in Bangkok’s northern districts rose yesterday, the Flood Relief Operation Command said in an e- mailed statement.
“Residents in some areas of Chatuchak, Nong Kaem, Klong Sam Wa, and Ladprao have been advised to evacuate to safer areas,” the flood-center said. The Office of Atoms for Peace maintains a nuclear reactor for research on Vipawadee Rangsit road, near Chatuchak market, according to the flood center.
“We aren’t concerned about a nuclear radiation leakage because the reactor is located 1.7 meters above ground and is protected by an 8.7-meter-high protective wall," Chaivat Toskulkao, secretary general for the Office of Atoms for Peace, said by phone today. The 1.2-megawatt reactor halted operations last month, he said. Vipawadee Rangsit road has experienced minor flooding.
‘Serious Problems’
Yingluck said Thonburi, on the western side of the Chao Phraya river, ‘‘may face serious problems.’’
‘‘The drainage is quite difficult because small canals connecting to the Taweewattana canal are narrow and clogged, which makes it difficult to drain the water in the west,’’ she said. ‘‘We need to wait until the sea level subsides before we can accelerate drainage efforts.’’
Thailand’s government will start pumping floodwater from the Rojana industrial estate in Ayutthaya province on Nov. 7, Permanent Secretary for Industry Witoon Simachokedee said earlier this week.
‘‘The drainage should be done within two weeks and the companies can start to get into their properties to fix machinery,’’ Deputy Prime Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong said yesterday.
Rehabilitation of the Nava Nakorn Industrial Estate in Ayutthaya will start on Nov. 15 and take 45 days, Nipit Arunvongse Na Ayudhya, managing director of Nava Nakorn Pcl, said yesterday. Building stronger floodwalls around the seven inundated industrial estates may cost 6 billion baht ($195 million), Nipit said.
‘‘The situation should be back to normal by New Year or early January,’’ he said. ‘‘Still, it may take a few more months for some plants, depending on their businesses.
