MaxYakov

Well ... they "built that wall" (and it didn't stop his jumping - for those that are confused)!

Phrae worst off as haze air pollution covers North, Northeast

1 hour ago, Unify said:

You don't even need planes. You can easily spot the info from publicly available satellite images, and even download apps that show what fires are currently burning.

NASA FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System) - HERE

Example of Today's fires in Bangkok vicinity and Cambodia taken at 1400. The day began at 0800 (All Times Bangkok local time - relatively sparse fire activity)

"Haze Air pollution has enveloped Muang, Chum Phae, Mancha Khiri, Kranuan, Ubol Rattana and Phra Yuen districts."

Getting dangerous?!

Death of 17-year-old British tourist: Patong bike motorbike rental shop fined Bt2000

Khon Kaen fights against heavy haze air pollution

There is a $1,000 fine for littering on California, USA freeways. They stay fairly trash-free, but there's always the occasional pig sty creator driving around.

Maybe Thailand should consider stiff fines for littering. Naaaah, forget it. Nobody has money or anti-littering morals and thy wouldn't be enforced anyway.

Naturally the Japanese are not going to recommend the most obvious way to improve road safety:

Dump Two-wheeled Motor Vehicles.

Not a mystery as to why they wouldn't recommend doing this. And Thailand's economy would suffer drastically if they did so (an impossibility, I'd say).

On 2/6/2019 at 4:07 AM, GinBoy2 said:

Absolutely right.

 

My wife, educated in US as a teenager, and we lived in Singapore for years.

 

However she is very clearly Lao. When we moved to Thailand and decided to get married, she and sister went shopping for a wedding dress in a pretty upmarket store in Bangkok.

The shopgirl insisted to look at her hands to ensure she wasn't a farmer!

 

I was waiting in the front of the store, I went ballistic, I couldn't believe it

 

Internal racism?...Hell Yes

"Internal racism?" - never heard of that one. Careful not to confuse "racism" with classism and/or discrimination and/or cultural or religious rejection.

The way I look at is: racism happens between the ears and is not illegal (unless it leads to an illegal action). It could lead to classism or discrimination where the (what may or not be) racism rubber hits the road (leads to action such as (perhaps illegal) discrimination).

We farangs are discriminated against all the time, but I'm careful not to necessarily put it down to racism. If you're not Japanese, try getting into one of those Japanese-only clubs in Phat Phong and elsewhere in Bangkok.

So the question we should be asking, IMHO, is whether any store/shop/bar has the right to discriminate w/r which customers would be acceptable (to sell to). The U.S. and others, I believe, have gone completely over-the-top with forcing shops to cater to a certain class of undesirable (to them) customers, such as the "gay" when it would be against their morals, religious beliefs, etc.

I've had at least one dinner in Thailand that made we want to shoot myself afterwards.

9 hours ago, Khaeng Mak said:

Another sad thing here is that the driver of the white car had slowed to near standstill in preparation to make his left turn onto the dirt. This can often cause an accident. But is entirely necessary to avoid being hit by the idiots who scream up your inside on a motorbike when you want to make a left turn.

 

This accident is a (good) working example of everything that is wrong with the roads here.

 

 

I'm sure you meant an example of what's wrong with the drivers (and truck loaders) here. The white car slowed for the left turn with a truck bearing down on it. That was a bad idea because he risked being rear-ended by the truck.

It was the truck driver's choice when he realized (too late) that he could not stop to either hit the left-turning white car or try to maneuver around it at speed.

I hope the couple fully-recover from this.

13 hours ago, Henryford said:

Would be interesting to follow some of these (sad) stories. What does a 90 (or 70 or 80) year old do returning to say the UK.  With limited funds can you rent a home? would any Council provide you with a home? Do you get off the plane homeless (in -9C weather).

I have a Dodge Grand Caravan Sport minivan in a 20 ft storage locker. I developed it to be a Stealthy Motor Home (SMH) with some cool electronic and other upgrades and it's costing me monthly to maintain it for "just in case". I like neither landlords nor neighbors and I easily avoid -9C weather ????.

13 minutes ago, Montecristo said:

I am not quite sure I understood the requirement: keep 800,000B in a Thai bank account? That's around 25,000 USD. That makes no sense. Why would anyone keep 25k in a bank? What's the interest rate? Under 1%?  I like stock that have high yield, nice dividends at the end of the year. I am getting between 5-8%. Basically, do I have 25k to give as a present to a Thai bank? Of course not.  Someone wrote here: METV, and some travel back home, plus surrounding countries. Sounds like a plan. Maybe even one of surrounding countries becomes a place of more permanent residence.

I'm very negative on placing funds into a Thai bank account or even having an account (been there, done that). I stayed on double-entry tourist visas for years, but it got to be a pain plus rumors that immigration may have considered it abusive after so many of them. Still, it might be a stopgap option until a replacement permanent residence country is found.

And the ultimate insult is that she's riding a bicycle rather than polluting the air with a motor vehicle.

14 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

Foreigners are wanted but they want the ones who can take good care of themselves.

And keep a lot of money in or pass a lot of money through a Thai Bank.

The only good news is that they haven't adjusted for inflation the amount of money involved for at least ten years.

12 minutes ago, balo said:

Best air for a month here in Pattaya , numbers down to 30++ . 

The farmer-arsonists in Thailand/Cambodia so far seemed to have taken the morning off.

NASA FIRMS "Today" reading at 1139 (3 hours, 39 minutes after their 0800 (Bangkok time) daily fire display reset (PartyYeah! is about 200 km west of the Cambodian border - SEA map image, below):

1 hour ago, uhuh said:

Agricultural burning is mainly ďone at nighttime,  because there is no wind at night. You can't control agricultural fires if there is. wind. 

 

Very early in this thread we read that agricultural fires account for 50% of Thailand's air pollution.

If that's the case Bangkok can't win for losing - fires at night/early morning and motor vehicles, industry and cooking the remainder of the day. Here's the NASA FIRMS "Today" image (assuming their day starts around 0900, Bangkok time) at 0240. I've seen it much worse at this time (I think).

And the corresponding RTAQ at 0100 (image taken at 0250 because RTAQ is not really Real-Time)

Ignore this. I yet to figure out how to delete unwanted images that I've inserted. Can anyone help?

3 hours ago, DaveInSukhumvit said:

The Bangkok nighttime AQI has improved dramatically over last 3 days Friday-Saturday-Sunday (since the school shutdown).  It is a good sign that government policy can improve air quality dramatically.  AFIK there is no other reason for air to improve except government order.  The BKK weather pattern has been the same (temperature, wind velocity and direction, stagnant air, traffic).  All same.  If anything, there might be a little more driving right now because many people got paycheck at end of month and are driving to celebrate Chinese New Year with family and friends. 

Image 1: Refer to circle highlights below which draw attention to Nighttime AQI (start of day).

Image 2: What has changed?  Inspection Order by Governor Aswin.  Weather has been same.

 

I'm just looking for the correct answer.  I don't mind being wrong.  Corrections and improvements welcome.

I am very happy for the government order, school shutdown, and locals wearing masks.

 

 

Thanks. It had been peaking in the late evening an early morning and was in the red for 48 hours straight. The school shutdown may have helped in daytime, but doesn't explain why the unexplained sudden drop at 23:00 Thursday when on prior days it had begin to peak in the late evening and early morning hours - leading to speculation that there was nighttime field burning going on (to help avoid detection). Also, recent NASA FIRMS observations indicates to me a recent reduction fires in the vicinity of Bangkok (second image).

I've been tracking and snapshotting both the RTAQ and AirVisual sites and the NASA Fire Management site. The below RTAQ shows the dramatic drop Thursday evening and Friday early morning when it had been peaking earlier in the week during Thursday, which, to me, doesn't necessarily mean that the school closing was the source of the drop (or a reason why it would peak at 2300 or the early morning hours as it had been doing earlier in the week).

The below NASA FIRMS snapshot was a "Today" snapshot that was taken at 1430 (Bangkok) hours on 02/02. My best guess is that the FIRMS day starts around 0900 Bangkok because I have FIRMS snapshots at that time showing no fires for both Bangkok and Cambodia. In any event, the below 1430 (Bangkok) snapshot shows relatively sparse fire activity.

One thing that is not accounted for is a potential for a meteorological change that could explain the recent drop in PM2.5 particulates (which, BTW, is still showing peaks in the red this weekend that could be attributed to motor vehicle activity).

BTW, the RTAQ site is NOT RT (Real Time) because the display often is two hours behind. The AirVisual MAY be real time as well as the NASA FIRMS site, but it's difficult to determine with them (or at least I haven't figured out how to determine how "Real Time" they actually are).

Maybe we should get Al Gore and his ilk to do computer modeling to predict the future state of Bangkok's smog (aka haze in the Bangkok Media). ????

On 2/1/2019 at 4:07 PM, Kasset Tak said:

Only difference between Prayuth and Trump is that Trump now have a congress that say "NO" to any crazy spending sprees...

Sort of forgetting about the 2016 election, aren't you? Or are you one of those nutters that think Trump colluded with the Russians to get elected (as well as referring a relatively trivial 5.7 B on US border security a "spending spree"?). And oh, yeah you might want to consider that there is a Constitution in place that limits Trump's going completely off the rails into absolute tyranny. They only difference, huh? I have to say that it looks like they both have hatred of the media in common.

4 minutes ago, wood said:

Yes he's rang me up and asked to pose the question to you all.????

Where'd he find the time to break away from working on the drones that are dumping two liters of water at a time on the pollution?

Here, munch on this for a while:

https://www.quora.com/Can-you-run-out-of-oxygen-in-a-small-room-with-the-door-closed

3 minutes ago, JAS21 said:

I looked at toilet extract fans yesterday ... wondered about a project using one and the hepa filter that is fitted to either the everest (20cm*23cm) or the civic. I know that civic 2.5 ug/m3 is pulled down quite low. Probably put some 3M filtrate in front of the hepa.

 

My Daikin Air Conditioner (MCK55TVM6) doesn't have a huge flow but it soon pulls down the 2.5ug/m3 in our bedroom...

What is the Daikin A/C using as a particle filter?

28 minutes ago, fishism said:

 

My hatari fan with HEPA filter seems like a failure, I tried putting it on the front and there is zero air flow, keeping inside the box was better.

Was yours the same size fan?


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

 

As I said earlier HERE:

"If you're thinking of using such a filter with a box fan and the filter has a charcoal odor filter, you might dump the carbon layer to get better air flow. You might also with placing just the HEPA, folded filter material component in the fan's intake rather than in it fan's output. This may require that the filter be spaced further away from the fan so as to not interfere with the fan's aerodynamic characteristics. Such a spacing would require building a simple plenum out of corrugated plastic construction material or even cardboard. At least with such a plenum you could get away with having only one smaller air purifier HEPA filter rather than two by designing the plenum to "narrow-down" with distance from a (larger width) box fan."

Since I have an unused Hatari HA 9218 HEPA filter lying around, I may go out and buy a box fan that is similar to the one in the DiY video and do a little experimentation with a fabricated plenum to get the filter some distance from the fan (if necessary). My PerfectBrandz PBC-333 evaporative cooler (converted to be an air purifier) works fine as a high-velocity/high-volume cooler/air purifier using a single layer of 3M Filtrete filter material only a few inches from its squirrel-cage fan - on the intake side. Of course, it was designed to push air with some air flow restriction on the intake side (the evaporative water cooling component - which was designed to be removed - and I did and essentially replaced it with the filter material).

24 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

On that point, my wife works in purchasing, and today, her Thai boss asked her for info about the HEPA air purifier we have at home, apparently because the boss is now thinking about wanting to buy a unit for her home.

 

So, I was checking around with some web links to provide to my wife for her boss, both for the Sharp unit we have in our bedroom, and also for the Xiaomi 2S model that some folks here have, use and have reviewed well. The latter also has the advantage of having relatively easily obtained replacement filters here in Thailand -- which often can be a challenge with other models.

 

Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but for both the Sharp model we have and the Xiaomi model, almost every website and supplier that I had bookmarked, saved or checked today showed as "out of stock" for all kinds of HEPA air purifier models. So seems to be pretty much the same situation as with the N95 masks.  Few and far between, and hard to find.

 

That's why I always say, and try to think, about being ahead of the game here, and not waiting until every Tom, Dick and Somchai figures out the air is terrible and they'd better try to do something to save their lungs. Maybe better luck with the locally produced and commonplace Hatari HEPA units....

 

 

As a cyclist often on the road in urban Bangkok, I've always considered the air to be bad where I spend a lot of time. Even the sidewalks are too close to the road AFAIC. So, I had a ten-year head start on this particular type crisis (I've kept every worn-out mask - I have dozens and can recycle them by placing custom filter material into them).

In a related vein there was a humorous above-the-fold headline and article on/in today's unmentionable (here) newspaper:

PM Says 'abandon cars'

I actually bought a copy to frame and smile at every time I see it.

8 hours ago, JAS21 said:

OK I live just outside BK ... 400M from Klong Prapa which is the boarder. This morning the AQI is low ... took reading about 5:45am and it felt really humid outside which my meter showed that it was..

 

Air purifier and Air Con running all night in the bedroom

 

In the house down stairs

 

Outside

 

Just wondered what reading people are getting 'in the smoke'  ....

Nice post and what looks to be a nice PM monitor. Can you tell us what make/model it is and where you bought it?