The Thai government’s flood relief center announced this morning that 800 million cubic meters of floodwaters will hit eastern Bangkok on Friday the 21st of October, after passing over the Rangsit plain. Seven districts of the city are now at high risk for flooding, as the Thai government has opted to open canals in the eastern areas of the city to absorb the runoff, and has instead focused its energies on protecting central Bangkok, the economic heart of the city. The end of the disaster is a long ways off, as it will take an estimated forty days for the entire amount of runoff headed towards Bangkok from surrounding areas to drain – roughly 12 billion cubic meters, enough water to cover the US state of Conneticut with a meter of water – to drain into the gulf of Thailand.
But are central Bangkok residents and retail centers approaching the situation with similar gravity? A scan of supermarkets on Sukumvit revealed slightly reduced supplies of bottled water, but the scenes described at supermarkets in other areas of the city – empty shelves, elevated prices, no bottled water to be found – simply aren’t present in central Bangkok. A few retail centers have made small stacks of sandbags around their buildings’ perimeters, but most seem to be operating with a “business as usual” mentality.
Certainly, those who live and work in central Bangkok should continue with their personal lives and careers rather than shutting down, but given that seven districts of Bangkok are being sacrificed to save the city center from flooding, shouldn’t central Bangkok respond to the critical threat of flooding with a few more sandbags, and a little less flippancy?
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