'No repeat of 2011' flood horror
Key govt water chiefs anxious to allay concerns caused by crises in North
Key figures on the Water and Flood Management Commission are trying their utmost to allay mounting fears the flood season this year, which has caused widespread chaos in many provinces already, will turn into a replay of last year’s massive crisis.
“Flooding may hit some areas this year but definitely not on the scale seen in 2011,” Royol Chitradon, director of the Hydro and Agro Informatics Institute and a member of a WFMC committee, said yesterday.
“The number of storms will be fewer than that in 2011,” he said.
The heart of Sukhothai is already ravaged, while Phichit, Phitsanulok and Ayutthaya are also struggling with flood water.
Science Minister Plodprasob Surassawadee, head of the WFMC, said authorities would try today to plug all holes in the floodwall in Sukhothai that allowed the town centre swamped.
He said the Office of National Water and Flood Management Policy would meet at 1pm today to identify flood-risk zones. “From now on, we must be able to predict floods and prepare resources for prevention and relief operations.”
Royol said weather this year was under the influence of El Nino, not La Nina like last year, while waterways had already been dredged and water-retention areas prepared.
“All these factors suggest that even if flooding strikes, it will not be as severe as last year,” he said.
In 2011, the country suffered its worst flood in decades, with over 800 people killed, seven industrial estates swamped along with homes of millions in Bangkok and elsewhere.
The Chao Phraya River in Nakhon Sawan was flowing at just 1,829 cubic metres per second, much less than 3,500 at one point last year, he said.
The Bhumibol and Sirikit dams were now discharging less than five million cubic metres per day of water downstream, he said. “Last year, it was 30 to 50 million cubic metres.”
Samai Jai-in, an adviser to the WFMC committee on the water situation and allocation, said that at this time last year, both Bhumibol and Sirikit were already brimming.
‘Dams can take more’
“But as of now, these two dams will be able to take in 8 billion cubic metres more,” he said.
Thailand had not yet faced the full brunt of any storm this year.
“Last year, five storms directly pounded the country,” he said.
The Sanba tropical storm, which was forming in the Philippines, would probably head to Taiwan and China rather than Thailand, he said.
“Besides all this, we have a well-integrated water database now. We also have pumps and devices to drain the run-off,” he said.
“In the current circumstances, only a storm surge or at least five storms will be able to throw Thailand into a flood crisis of the dimensions it experienced last year.”
Royol said continuing flooding in some provinces was mainly the result of unprecedented downpours.
“In low-lying areas, it will take several weeks to expel the water. Because the North is higher, run-off from there can flow down to the low-lying Central region within one week,” he said.
Train services to the North resumed last night after repairs were completed on a stretch of tracks that was left hanging in the air when a flash flood washed out a hillside in Lamphun.
