Bangkok governor blames power problem for major flooding on Friday

[KKr]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

The voltage of fuses was also boosted from 100 to 200 amps

this must be a translation error , no-one that has finished vocational or secondary school can say something amazing like that.

Given that wiring and fuses are calculated on the power needed by the machinery in the circuit, doubling the capacity of the fuses is usually impossible, unless the first lot were installed because they are cheaper than 200 A fuse units.

Anyway, such breakdowns as far as I have seen are often due to wrong specs, not built to specs, failing QC, looking-away inspectors, lack of testing, lack of redundancies, missing resiliency, incompetence, design bureaus without expertise, lack of common sense ...

And, if the above should not be a translation error, it only underlines the issue !

[Sydebolle]

Blown fuse, city officials who could not get the key to the water pumps etc etc etc

Unbelievable BS all the way; the symptoms are floods, the source is ........  clogged drainage. When I see all those streetside kitchens pouring their leftovers, used oil, buckets full of dirty water from washing dishes - combined with Somchai's habit of using a broom/hose to clean construction sites by getting all the sand, concrete and other garbage residue into the drainage ........

Only once Bangkok is seeing the first few hundred deaths due to floods - then only there might be some silver lining at the horizon. Until then, total stupidity, ignorance and selfishness shall prevail.

[rosst]

2 hours ago, peter2186 said:

I worked in an office with around 100 Thai engineers and any one of them is more than competent to design and construct an adequate pumping station that will fit the needs for managing floods. This appears to be the result of poor engineering, poor maintenance and lack of back up power - fuses, not impressed with that excuse!!

Thank you Peter, the design called for 100 Amp fusing which in my design criteria would be slow blow fuses capable of five minutes of 200% design current to arbitrarily double the amp rating of the circuit protection makes you wonder if the protection is for the pump or the grid? 

No mention of the voltage but one would assume relatively high and the sub stations are obviously lacking capacitance to handle the overload, penny pinching design. 

[RichardColeman]

Next excuse will be they installed 3-pin farang plug sockets and had no 2 pin converters converter

[milesinnz]

The voltage of fuses was also boosted from 100 to 200 amps,” Aswin said... I always thought voltage was measured in volts.. but I guess this is Thailand, and they have their own way of doing things.....

[kwak250]

Next time they will say it was the wrong type of rain that caused the flood.

[ben2talk]

6 hours ago, KMartinHandyman said:

And if a 200 amp fuse fails we’ll use a roll of ฿10 coins next time.

They don't even understand the nature of Voltage, Current or Power. They will change the voltage to a higher current?

It's clear they're just talking with zero knowledge whatsoever. The power supply voltage is surely standard 3 phase 440v by the time it reaches the equipment... 

 

They still haven't solved the problem about how to fix a cable without turning off power to a few dozen houses at a time... The whole purpose of an electrical grid is that you can make repairs and divert power without removing it from other people. Surely a system like this must have an independent supply of power... It seems obvious that this is the problem - a ramshackle wet string powersupply for an overgrown city. Investment clearly better diverted to buy new watches and submarines.

 

Perhaps they should study a model of the UK power grid. I don't remember any instances of brownouts or power cuts since the coal strikes in the 1970's.

 

Thailand is clearly around 50 years behind the UK, so can we expect it to be sorted in the next 5 years?

Edited June 11, 2019 by ben2talk

[bluesofa]

17 minutes ago, kwak250 said:

Next time they will say it was the wrong type of rain that caused the flood.

Isn't that copyright material from the British Rail Book of Good Excuses?

[overherebc]

2 hours ago, overherebc said:

You worry too much. I've got a few things plugged in in my kitchen. Ok tbe fuse blew a couple of times but I replaced with a cut down 6" nail and haven't had a problem since.

Here endeth the first lesson.

[manchega]

nice excuse but not true, sufficient preparation has not been carried out to prevent another bad bkk flood again, poor management will result in the same and the yearly floodings of surrounding regions in an attempt to protect BKK will continue

 

 

[Youlike]

1 hour ago, Sydebolle said:

Blown fuse, city officials who could not get the key to the water pumps etc etc etc

Unbelievable BS all the way; the symptoms are floods, the source is ........  clogged drainage. When I see all those streetside kitchens pouring their leftovers, used oil, buckets full of dirty water from washing dishes - combined with Somchai's habit of using a broom/hose to clean construction sites by getting all the sand, concrete and other garbage residue into the drainage ........

Only once Bangkok is seeing the first few hundred deaths due to floods - then only there might be some silver lining at the horizon. Until then, total stupidity, ignorance and selfishness shall prevail.

Under Naramin Rd in BKK there's a huge draincanal which gets cleaned every saturday night. They open the huge lids in the road by escavators and go in the canals to clean all. 

 

This happens every weekend though, i wonder why so often.

 

After that they close those huge concrete lids but they don't fit perfect and leave gaps.

[digger70]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

Aswin said he will step down if that will help save the capital from inundation. “But the truth is: if I quit, who will solve flood problems?”

Great, maybe they can find someone who knows what to do, and fix things before they go bad.

[WorldTravellerMUC]

Amazing Thailand!!

I believe that initially when the fuse was specified it had to be done based on the wiring, load, supply.... (let's hope so)

 

Now just to double it is totally crazy and shows you clearly the lack of understanding and incompetence of these guy(s).

 

This is when we built our house we finally had to do all the wiring ourselves. The electricians just had no clue about that either and explaining did not help. 

[jany123]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

Aswin said he will step down if that will help save the capital from inundation. “But the truth is: if I quit, who will solve flood problems?” he said. 

This type of thinking is a large part of the problem. 

[overherebc]

21 minutes ago, WorldTravellerMUC said:

Amazing Thailand!!

I believe that initially when the fuse was specified it had to be done based on the wiring, load, supply.... (let's hope so)

 

Now just to double it is totally crazy and shows you clearly the lack of understanding and incompetence of these guy(s).

 

This is when we built our house we finally had to do all the wiring ourselves. The electricians just had no clue about that either and explaining did not help. 

I did post a long time ago on similar. Guy who started the re-wiring couldn't understand why I bought red black and green wire for him. When I explained that one was for earth to be connected to the 1.5 metre copper earth rod I also bought he laughed and said 'not need in Thailand'.

I told him 'ok, not need you' and I got another guy in to do the work.

[lvr181]

18 minutes ago, jany123 said:

This type of thinking is a large part of the problem. 

"Ministerial" think. ????

[PerkinsCuthbert]

6 hours ago, Crossy said:

If the fuse pops, put in a bigger one! Yeah, that will be fine.

 

I have no idea what these "soldering stations" are, evidently an autocorrect but of what, sub-station one presumes.

 

Part of the design of this type of project is provision of adequate power supply, probably redundant in case one source goes down.

 

Wasn't there a problem last year with some diesel pumps, lost keys??

Soldering Hubs are very useful in flood prevention.

[TheHangingJudge]

Utterly useless and I mean the top officials not the tunnel.

what is a soldering station or a brownout I’m confused oh yes that’s the idea.

[Jano22]

If ? You mean when ?

[PETERTHEEATER]

.........The voltage of fuses was also boosted from 100 to 200 amps,” Aswin said. “This will prevent brownouts, which make the tunnel unusable.” 

 

Complete rubbish! Volts are volts and amperes are amperes. This must be an upgrade of the standard 'fix' for blown fuses in a consumer unit. If the fuses continue to blow then put in a six inch mail!

[off road pat]

8 hours ago, JAS21 said:

Yes ... he understands little about the problem which seems pretty clear... and he should know more as it is a major one ...

 

He should employ people who do understand the problem... put the right people in the right jobs and progress will be made ...this stinks of lack of maintenance, disaster planning ... their must be a decent size budget allocated ... MB

 

Fuse blows ...put a nail in ... .......

"Put the right people in the right jobs and progress will be made" Sic,... Yes you hit the nail right on the head, This is one of the main problems in Thailand, far too many people have important jobs because they are family or friends of somebody so called important and yet they are far unqualified for the job !!!

[MaxYakov]

 "The voltage of fuses was also boosted from 100 to 200 amps,” Aswin said. “This will prevent brownouts, which make the tunnel unusable.”"

 

Watt?! I think I see the problem, alright. Seeing statements like this makes me want to go on an amperage! ????

[SuwadeeS]

OMG So stupid.....

30 years ago I got a book. There was already written, the main problem of this is, there are not enough trees in Thailand. All these useless action does and will not solve it.

 

Look!!! One singe average tree if able to absorb 500 liter of water per day. 

During the last decades they even cut down more and more trees.

They should not spend so much money on useless thing, rather then buy and plant 

million and million of trees allover the country.

[Fred white]

he doesn't know the difference between amperage and voltage how about installing emergency generators but that would take brains which he does not have. probably pocketed the money anyway????

[Fred white]

9 hours ago, Sydebolle said:

Blown fuse, city officials who could not get the key to the water pumps etc etc etc

Unbelievable BS all the way; the symptoms are floods, the source is ........  clogged drainage. When I see all those streetside kitchens pouring their leftovers, used oil, buckets full of dirty water from washing dishes - combined with Somchai's habit of using a broom/hose to clean construction sites by getting all the sand, concrete and other garbage residue into the drainage ........

Only once Bangkok is seeing the first few hundred deaths due to floods - then only there might be some silver lining at the horizon. Until then, total stupidity, ignorance and selfishness shall prevail.

city officials blew the higher ups in govt that's how they got the job????

[Fred white]

7 hours ago, ben2talk said:

They don't even understand the nature of Voltage, Current or Power. They will change the voltage to a higher current?

It's clear they're just talking with zero knowledge whatsoever. The power supply voltage is surely standard 3 phase 440v by the time it reaches the equipment... 

 

They still haven't solved the problem about how to fix a cable without turning off power to a few dozen houses at a time... The whole purpose of an electrical grid is that you can make repairs and divert power without removing it from other people. Surely a system like this must have an independent supply of power... It seems obvious that this is the problem - a ramshackle wet string powersupply for an overgrown city. Investment clearly better diverted to buy new watches and submarines.

 

Perhaps they should study a model of the UK power grid. I don't remember any instances of brownouts or power cuts since the coal strikes in the 1970's.

 

Thailand is clearly around 50 years behind the UK, so can we expect it to be sorted in the next 5 years?

on their behalf it could be 380 volts a plant I worked in had a lot of equipment from Italy that was 380 we had to put in transformers 

[hkt83100]

Would someone please explain to these hopeless amateurs the difference between voltage and current, and ideally throw in a few words about the relation of cross section and resistance of cables and allowable currents? somehow it reminds me of the idiot who wanted to replace the cables in the house for the lights with fatter ones after upgrading the main connection for newly installed aircons. "Have more power, need bigger cable."

[The Deerhunter]

15 hours ago, KMartinHandyman said:

And if a 200 amp fuse fails we’ll use a roll of ฿10 coins next time.

Better than the 4inch nail I was going to suggest.  I wonder why only 100amp fuses were installed if the system is really and truly set up and designed for 200amps?

[Reigntax]

Next the governor will blame the power problems on flooding...and so it goes round and round

[The Deerhunter]

8 hours ago, TheHangingJudge said:

Utterly useless and I mean the top officials not the tunnel.

what is a soldering station or a brownout I’m confused oh yes that’s the idea.

I was wondering the same things myself.  Could be a case of "if you can't dazzle your critics with science, try blinding them with B.S." Or poor translation.....

Edited June 11, 2019 by The Deerhunter