The government expressed confidence yesterday that Bangkok would escape Thailand’s worst flooding in decades, as the capital’s elaborate barriers held strong and floodwaters began receding from submerged plains to the north.
Thai Agriculture Minister Theera Wongsamut said the largest mass of runoff water flowing southward had passed through Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River and into the Gulf of Thailand, and that the river’s levels would rise no higher. He stopped short of saying the threat to Bangkok had passed completely.
The capital is being shielded by an elaborate system of flood walls, canals, dikes and underground tunnels, but if any of the defenses fail, floodwaters could begin seeping into the city of 9 million people.
Photo: AFP
“People have faith these walls will work,” a saffron-robed monk named Pichitchai said as he peeked over stacks of sandbags added in recent days to help protect a Buddhist temple along a canal in northwestern Bangkok.
The 36-year-old monk uses only one name.
The agriculture minister said floodwaters in the central provinces of Singburi, Angthong and hard-hit Ayutthaya — all just north of Bangkok — have begun to recede, signaling that the pressure on the capital could ease. A spokesman for the government’s flood relief center, Wim Rungwattanajinda, said floodwaters have also decreased in Nakhon Sawan Province in the same area.
Relentless monsoon rains that began in late July have affected two-thirds of the country, drowning agricultural land, swamping hundreds of factories and swallowing low-lying villages along the way.
Almost 300 people have been killed so far, while more than 200 major highways and roads have been shut along with the main rail lines to the north. The most affected provinces are just north of Bangkok, including Ayutthaya, a former capital that is home to ancient and treasured stone temples. Water there and in other towns had risen 2m high in some places, forcing thousands of people to abandon their homes.
Despite widespread fears that the disaster could affect Bangkok, the city has so far been mostly untouched. Heavy rains poured down on the capital for much of the day yesterday, but life was otherwise normal with shopping malls open and elevated trains crisscrossing the city.
Theera told reporters that the “level of water has already subsided” on the Chao Phraya River.
It “will not be higher than the barriers,” he said.
Sean Boonpracong, another spokesman for Bangkok’s flood relief center, said several days of higher-than-normal tides — which have slowed runoff through the Chao Phraya to the sea — have also eased.
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