Tension over sluice gates ease
Tension over the Khlong Phraya Suren sluice gate eased significantly yesterday after Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) agreed to open it by 1.30 metres and a team from the Flood Relief Operations Centre (FROC) visited the disgruntled locals.
The situation at the sluice gate has been tense for several days as Pol Major Sangiam Samranrat, an official at the PM’s Secretary-General’s Office, led protesters on Sunday night to demand that the gate be opened 1.5m wide.
BMA wanted to keep the opening a metre wide, while Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra and Sa-ngiam started threatening to take legal action against each other. However, Sukhumbhand changed his mind yesterday by admitting that the sluice gate was one of the four key gates in the capital and needed to be opened wider.
“This is because the situation is getting better and we are keeping the Khlong Phraya Suren sluice gate opening at 1.30-metre wide,” he said.
FROC director Pol General Pracha Promnok credited his team for helping ease the tension.
“They visited the locals and helped them understand the situation,” Pracha said, adding that if opening the gate wider did not affect people in Nonthaburi’s Bang Kruay and Bang Bua Thong districts, and those in Bangkok’s Sai Mai and Don Muang districts, then the gate could be opened wider.
Meanwhile, people living in Soi Chaeng Wattana 14 are threatening to block Chaeng Wattana Road today because they say the authorities are doing little to drain their area.
“The water levels have only dropped by 20 centimetres and small vehicles still cannot enter the soi,” a resident complained.
Meanwhile, an informed source said that FROC would quietly bring its operations to a stop by the end of this year. “There will be no official announcements because no one wants to see the issue getting politicised,” the source said.
