WATERY DISASTER BRINGS PERIL FROM NORTH
As Bangkok braced for the worst with a wall of sandbags, the 2011 flood swamped 65 provinces, farms, industrial estates and Don Mueang airport, wreaking economic havoc and sparking a political blame game, writes Kamolwat Praprutitum
Nothing prepared the country for the record-breaking flood of 2011 that challenged readers and reporters alike as they navigated the unfolding, watery disaster. Although the Bangkok Post was spared flooding, the newsroom was awash with daily reports and updates as unprecedented amounts of water cascaded down from the North, devastating homes and swathes of land in its path.
One province after another in the North and Central Plains fell in the flood that lasted more than half a year.
The year 2011 had been particularly wet, with the onset of the rainy season in July preceded by an unusual drop of temperature over a few days in April. By August, floods had swamped 5.8 million rai of land nationwide compared with 884,822 rai of flooded areas in July, according to the Hydro and Agro Informatics Institute.
The crisis grew rapidly worse over the next two months. Flooded land extended to more than 22 million rai by the time the flood dealt its heaviest blow in October.
The record-breaking floods caused estimated economic damage of 1.4 trillion baht, affected 65 of the 77 provinces and was responsible for 815 deaths during the 175 days of the flooding period from July 25.
The Bangkok Post chased the flood story from day one, highlighted by bold headlines which dominated the paper in the latter half of 2011.
The ominous signs of a massive flood in the making began when it was reported that the Sirikit and Bhumibol dams, the country’s main dams in the North, were full to the brim and struggling to discharge surplus water, which inundated downstream provinces and eventually reached Bangkok. “Dams near breaking point”, our Oct 1 story read. An accompanying picture of a woman at the busy riverside Tha Phra Chan market moving her belongings to higher ground was highlighted by the caption “Deluge moves in on capital”.
The flood stories had a political spin about them as the two arch rivals, the Democrats and the Pheu Thai Party, were trading accusations over who should be held to account for what was decried as grave mismanagement of national water policies.
Pheu Thai swept to power in the July 3, 2011, general election. It won 265 MP seats, well above the 250-seat majority, over the Democrats’ 159 seats.
However, the extensive destruction wrought by the flood in the months that followed the poll resulted in a political blame game.
Pheu Thai suspected the Democrats had deliberately held back 4 billion cubic metres of water in major dams to damage the new government.
It asked why the Democrats had not released water from the Bhumibol and Sirikit dams at the normal rate of 1,000 million cubic metres per month between May and August when it was in power.
That release rate was maintained over the same period in 2009 and 2010 when the Democrat government was able to balance the water levels in the dams.
On Aug 25 when the Pheu Thai government declared its policy statement in parliament, the water levels were extremely high. The water retention capacity of both the Bhumibol and Sirikit dams had peaked by the time the Flood Relief Operations Command (Froc) was formed on Oct 8.
Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva denied the claim, insisting that during the Democrats’ time in power in the first half of 2011, water levels in the two dams were lower than the minimum retention levels recorded in the previous two years. Water use was also at a normal rate but the rainfall then was rather low.
He also contended that on the day he dissolved parliament in May 2011, the dams were at a manageable level. Water levels began rising from June and the dams were about half-full at the time of the election.
Mr Abhisit said a storm, Nock-ten, that arrived in late July directly contributed to the dams becoming full.
Water collected from the North flowed to the Central Plains and built up a critical mass in October when Bangkok and nearby provinces with many industrial estates took a direct hit.
Levees and flood walls were breached, swamping major industries, from car manufacturers to electrical appliance makers, and hurting foreign investors.
On Oct 13, Kittirat Na-Ranong, the deputy prime minister, witnessed first-hand the fall of the Hi-Tech Industrial Estate in Ayutthaya, one of the early industrial casualties of the advancing flood.
A large body of water had moved right to the doorstep of Bangkok, setting off alarm in the city’s northernmost districts of Don Muang and Sai Mai. In a matter of hours, the water ravaged the districts by overflowing canals and drainage systems. The flood was heading for the heart of Bangkok, threatening further damage to the country’s economic and administrative heartlands.
The Oct 25 front-page headline “Fearful city folks brace for soaking” summed up the mood of city residents.
The government deployed oversized sandbags — known as big bags — the size of a small car. The bags were stacked in a wall stretching for many kilometres around the northern perimeter of Don Mueang airport and the adjacent air force base. It also extended across nearby Vibhavadi Rangsit Road and into Phahon Yothin Road on the other side of airport.
The wall dampened the flood’s advance but the Don Muang and Sai Mai communities suffered behind the big bags. They asked why they had to be sacrificed for the sake of saving the city centre. Many homes were under almost two metres of water.
The sight of a row of aircraft being grounded with their wheels covered by the deluge shocked many. The flood forced the four-month closure of the century-old Don Mueang airport from Oct 25, 2011. The airport on its knees was testament to the unrestrained power of the flood, knocking out many infrastructure and transportation nerve centres.
Bangkok was being hammered by flood water from all sides. Canals traversing the city were filling up fast from the overflowing Chao Phraya River to the west and a rapid surge of water on flooded plains in the eastern suburbs. Flood gates were shut and water pumps siphoning away water around the clock, sometimes only to slow the pace of the rising flood.
Where the residents decided to remain in their flooded homes, food and basic necessities had to be delivered to them by boat, prompting some of the largest relief operations in history involving the private and government sectors.
The public slammed Froc and the government for being too slow to battle the disaster, which took its toll on the Pheu Thai Party’s popularity in some of its traditional strongholds, including Bangkok’s northern districts.
Mr Abhisit filed a no-confidence debate and impeachment motion against then justice minister Pracha Promnok as Froc director for failing to solve flood problems and irregularities in distribution of relief supplies. Pol Gen Pracha survived the confidence vote.
As residents fled their flooded homes left and right to take refuge in rented accommodation or in government-run shelters, the Bangkok Post editorial department resembled a disaster shelter.
Spirit intact, staff in boots and shorts waded through flooded streets to get to work. Reporters managed against the odds to cover flooded spots in the city and filed their stories to the office where editors and senior staff, many of whom were flood victims themselves, processed the news while ensuring the least interruption to normal editorial functions.
As night fell, empty spaces around desks in secluded spots doubled as sleeping areas and in some areas tents sprang up as makeshift bedrooms for staff.
The scene was repeated for weeks until the water level dropped enough for public transport systems in the city to resume, allowing editorial staff to return home.
Post photographers ventured out in a motorised boat in the dead of night to capture still images of the disaster in motion. The boat was the only traffic navigating the depths of Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, normally one of the busiest routes out of Bangkok.
The eerie silence was broken by the spluttering of their boat engine and the only source of light shining on deserted communities along the road was from the photographer’s hand-held torch.
By early 2012 when the water finally receded, Bangkok was among the last provinces to pull out of the flood crisis, which left behind a massive clean-up operation and a huge bill for compensation the government was handing out to affected households.