Flooding in Ayutthaya unrelated to water drainage test: Royol
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The operation chief of the government's water drainage test has denied reports that the current flooding in Ayutthaya is the result of the test that started on Wednesday.
Royol Chitradon said the flooding in the province was caused by heavy rains.
The areas under water are not on the route of the test, he said. Royol is the director of the Hydro and Agro Informatics Institute (HAII) and a member of the National Water Resources and Flood Policy Committee.
He was responding to reports in the government-run Thai News Agency that more than 1,000 rai of paddy field in the “rice bowl” province of Ayutthaya was flooded Wednesday as the water level rose one metre higher than the Chao Phraya river.
It was said that this was possibly a result of the government’s three-day water drainage test that started today.
Suparerk Klankla, an official in Ayutthaya’s Bang Pa-in district, said farmers had to urgently harvest paddy in their flooded rice fields, or it would be severely damaged.
