PM pressures BMA for answers

Several areas of Bangkok have suffered prolonged flooding repeatedly after heavy rainfall in the past few days. 

Yingluck said the BMA should know best about the capacity of its giant drainage tunnels.

When last year’s flood crisis affected vast areas of the country including the capital, Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra accused the Yingluck government of mistakes in water management that led to a huge volume of run-off inundating Bangkok. Sukhumbhand insists that the capital’s drainage system is efficient enough to deal with rainwater, but not run-off. He has also repeatedly boasted of the efficiency and capacity of Bangkok’s giant drainage tunnels.

But the recent flooding in the capital has raised questions as to just how efficient these tunnels are. 

“We have never known the actual capacity of the tunnels,” said Yingluck, adding that the BMA should provide the answer. 

Deputy Bangkok governor Teerachon Manomaiphibul explained that, while average rainfall level for the capital was 125 millimetres per month, the level had reached 400 millimetres in the past four days alone. “With the giant water-drainage tunnels, we can drain all the rainwater within a few hours. Without them, it could have taken days,” he said.

He said the capital’s water-drainage system was designed to deal with levels of up to 60 millimetres of rainfall at one time. 

Fellow deputy governor Vallop Suwandee said the rainfall level in Bangkok on Tuesday was well over 100 millimetres and thus 29 spots in the capital experienced temporary flooding.

“But at many of these spots, including the Royal Plaza, all floodwater was gone in less than an hour,” he said.

He said such efficiency was achieved because water gates, pump stations and water-drainage tunnels in the capital were working well.

“Canal-dredging operations are already 97-per-cent complete,” Vallop added.

Working for the Water and Flood Management Commission (WFMC), Hydro and Agro Infomatics Institute director Royol Chitdon said the WFMC was now working closely with the BMA on a plan to deploy boats to speed up the flow in Bangkok’s canals and ease downpour-induced flooding. 

According to Public Health Minister Witthaya Buranasiri, Bangkok has not been named among the country’s 13 flood disaster-hit zones. 

National Disaster Warning Centre director Somsak Khaosuwan, meanwhile, said locals in Trat and Chanthaburi must be on the alert for possible landslides after heavy rain. 

The Office of the National Water and Flood Management Policy will today announce the list of companies whose plans for the Bt350-billion nationwide sustainable water-management and flood-prevention system have passed the first submission round. Suwattana Jitladakorn of the Engineering Institute of Thailand’s subcommittee on water sources |complained that Bangkok’s flood problems were not being tackled at their root. He said the focus was on canal dredging rather than drainage pipes. 

“From the engineering perspective, water-drainage pipes are the key for fast drainage,” he said.

Suwattana voiced his fear that a large volume of sand may have leaked from sandbag floodwalls last year and clogged the capital’s water-drainage pipes. 

“So, it’s necessary that we clear the partially clogged pipes road by road,” he said.

Yingluck said the government had assigned the Corrections Department to deploy prison inmates to clear clogged pipes. 

“We will carry out operations in privately owned plots, too, if their owners agree,” she said.