Prachin Buri estate falls victim to floods
Prachin Buri’s 304 Industrial Park became the country’s first major manufacturing site to be hit by floods this year after a nearby river burst its banks yesterday.
Officials in Si Maha Phot district were rushing to construct an emergency dyke around the industrial estate in tambon Tha Toom to prevent floodwater inundating all of its 500 factories.
Authorities said the Prachin Buri River burst its banks and immediately flooded areas around the industrial park.
Water also flooded parts of the park including a factory making car airbags.
Authorities said the water level in the factory was about 40cm deep. As the water flowed into the factory workers desperately tried to move manufacturing equipment to higher ground while pumps were used to drain water from the plant.
Authorities and park officials were yesterday building a dyke around the industrial estate using large sandbags to prevent further flooding.
They said they feared the park could be completely inundated if heavy rain continues to fall over the next few days.
Prachin Buri has been hardest hit by downpours across the country since late last week.
Muang, Kabin Buri, Na Di, Prachan- takham and Si Maha Phot districts have been flooded. More than 8,000 households have also been affected.
Jitra Promchutima, Prachin Buri governor, says the provincial office has declared the districts flood disaster areas.
She said she has instructed authorities to help provide food and drinking water for flood victims.
Ms Jitra said the water level in the Prachin Buri River in Si Maha Phot district yesterday rose to 9.80m, which was 80cm higher than the critical level.
She said provincial officials were speeding up efforts to install pumps to drain off a large volume of water in Si Maha Phot district and upper Kabin Buri district as quickly as possible.
Downpours have also severely hit several provinces in the Central Plains.
People living in communities along the banks of Chao Phraya River in Ang Thong, Sing Buri, Ayutthaya, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani and Bangkok were experiencing flooding.
Deputy Interior Minister Wisarn Techathirawat said Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will travel to Pathum Thani on Saturday to inspect the flood situation there.
The latest report from the Interior Ministry’s Public Disaster Prevention and Relief Department shows that 23 provinces in the central, eastern, lower northeastern and northern regions are flooded and nine people have died of flood-related causes. More than 420,000 households or 1.5 million people have been affected.
In Bangkok, residents in riverside and khlongside communities in 20 districts which are outside the city’s flood barriers were warned by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration on Tuesday to brace for possible flooding and to move their valuables to higher ground.
The water level in the Chao Phraya River is steadily rising as a result of the increased discharge of water runoff through the Chao Phraya dam in Chainat province.
The flood situation in upcountry provinces and the prospect that the unprotected communities along the Chao Phraya River and its khlongs may be submerged have brought back the painful memory of the big floods in 2011 when parts of Bangkok and several central provinces were under water for months.
However, officials concerned from Deputy Prime Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi, who is in charge of water management, down to the National Disaster Warning Centre assure the public there will not be a repeat of those huge floods.
Mr Plodprasop also said rain-making operations in the upper northern region are needed because the main dams, namely the Bhumibol and Sirikit, are still in need of more water to ensure there will be enough for irrigation purposes during the dry season.
Despite the assurance, the flooding poses a real challenge to the government and, in particular, Mr Plodprasop’s panel in charge of water management and flood prevention over whether they are capable of coping with the situation. The panel should have learned some lessons from the big floods in 2011, especially the weaknesses of the agencies concerned and the childish infighting which affected flood prevention and relief operations. They must not fail the public this time.
The current floods also provide a good opportunity for the public to ask the government about what it has done with the 100-billion-baht post-flood rehabilitation fund, part of which was supposed to be spent on dredging operations to deepen natural waterways, and building flood barriers to protect riverside communities and industrial estates.
The National Disaster Warning Centre has blamed the current flooding on three factors: continuous heavy rainfall, storms and increased volumes of water released through the Chao Phraya dam.
While rainfall and storm factors are beyond our control, several man-made factors have been identified for contributing to the flood situation or for worsening flooding in the Central Plains.
The building of industrial and housing estates in what used to be rice fields that were normally flooded during the rainy season, and the building of flood barriers to protect these estates, are cited as a problem as they block or slow down the natural flow of water.
It may be impossible now for these concrete structures to be dismantled. But the government should at least acknowledge these as a problem in the hope that no new structures are permitted in these natural water retention areas.
Childish infighting ... affected flood prevention.