Garbage impeding flow of rainwater: BMA

Bangkok city clerk Sanya Sheenimit disclosed the figure yesterday, as he urged city residents to refrain from throwing garbage into canals and drainage pipes.
He said blocked pipes were one reason rainwater could not be drained out of the capital quickly.
Sanya was speaking in response to Bangkok people’s loud complaints about how flooding hit many parts of the capital in recent days after some brief cloudbursts.
“Blocked pipes have significantly reduced the city administration’s water drainage capacity,” he said.
He assured local residents that the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) was ready to prevent flooding in the coming rainy season.

Poetic plea
“We can drain water fast if the rainfall does not exceed 60 millimetres per hour,” he said, “If the rainfall is greater, it will take some time to clear water from traffic surfaces. But definitely houses won’t be flooded.”
He said floods hit parts of the capital on Tuesday because there was nearly 100mm of rain. The rainfall was also as great as 113mm in Sai Mai district on Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra has called on the people to express moral support for the city’s drainage and sewerage staff, who he said work really hard in tackling flood threats.
Their mission is tough in the face of heavy rain and garbage-blocked drainage pipes, according to a poem posted on Sukhumbhand’s Facebook page yesterday.
He said the poem was written by an official of the BMA’s Drainage and Sewerage Department.
A part of it says: “We fight floods while you are asleep. Please do not scold us. We are working to the best of our abilities. When you wake up, please smile at us … Our task is not easy. Apart from heavy rain, we also face garbage-blocked pipes.”