Nava Nakorn Disaster: Too Little Done Too Late

[webfact]

Nava Nakorn disaster: too little done too late

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation

Last Thursday, judging by how disorganised things were at Don Mueang Airport where the Flood Relief Operations Centre (FROC) is based, I realised that the Yingluck Shinawatra government was far too incompetent to handle the country's worst floods in decades.

Many provinces were submerged, nearly 300 people had lost their lives, four industrial estates in Ayutthaya were under water and 200,000 plus factory workers faced an uncertain future.

Then there was Nava Nakorn, one of the Kingdom's largest industrial estates just north of Bangkok in Pathum Thani, with another 227 factories faced closure and 170,000 workers were at the risk of losing their jobs.

On Friday, fearing a repetition of Ayutthaya, I joined a petition on Twitter asking volunteers to help strengthen the flood barriers at Nava Nakorn. I also called a few contacts and continued tweeting, reminding people that it was a priority to save jobs.

Sombat Boon-ngam-anong, a red-shirt leader and president of the Mirror Foundation, which is already helping FROC at Don Mueang, did his best in sending some volunteers to the area despite the lack of transportation and coordination.

Through Twitter, I eventually managed to get in touch with someone - a journalist from Spring News -who was at the estate on Saturday night. She said things were very disorganised there as she gave me two phone numbers. One number was that of a factory manager who said he was ready to welcome volunteers, and the second was that of a Nava Nakorn staff member called Surirat who insisted there was no cause for alarm and that everything "would be fine".

I begged her to reconsider because, after all, the owners of the now submerged industrial estates in Ayutthaya obviously thought the same and were proved wrong.

In addition, there were plenty of detractors on Twitter. One argued, asking why others should go out of their way to help when Nava Nakorn had funds and many workers at its disposal. I countered saying that they were disorganised and that there was no reason not to help.

On Sunday, as volunteers kept helping out at the Don Mueang Airport shelter among others, a Bangkok tweeter posted the picture of him "taking a short break" at a resort in Hua Hin. This at a time when people just outside the capital were asking why they should not pull down barriers that kept much of Bangkok dry.

When I voiced my disgust on Twitter, someone else rebutted saying he fully supported this behaviour as this exchange had become one of the many red and yellow-shirt blame games on Twitter.

Later, it dawned on me that perhaps members of labour unions from unaffected areas could take turns helping out at Nava Nakorn. So I got hold of Chalee Nam Loisoong, president of the Thai Labour Solidarity Committee, and he started doing what he could. I also rang other red-shirt leaders like MP Weng Tojirakarn, urging them to quickly dispatch red-shirt volunteers.

However, by late Monday morning, it was all too little too late. News broke that the run-off had breached the barrier and the authorities had ordered immediate evacuation.

Could we as a society have saved Nava Nakorn? I don't know.

Just as I was writing this article, Chalee called to say that many factories in Nava Nakorn were fending for themselves.

All I could do was leave a small note on Twitter yesterday thanking the few people who had re-tweeted my largely ignored plea to help Nava Nakorn.

Upon checking my e-mail I found a note from a foreign expert in Mahidol University saying that some factories in the affected industrial estates were now asking their workers to "resign" as there wouldn't be work for them "until after the cleanup".

Wonder what will happen at the other industrial estates "waiting" to be flooded down the line.

-- The Nation 2011-10-19

[alexakap]

Wonder what will happen at the other industrial estates "waiting" to be flooded down the line.

I'll tell ya: those will be nicely flooded.

Hail govt!

[Cloggie]

It looks like the server which hosts http://www.navanakorn.com/ has also submerged....

HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

Cloggie

[alexakap]

It looks like the server which hosts http://www.navanakorn.com/ has also submerged....

HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

Cloggie

Works for me.

Nava Nakorn, the first industrial promotion zone in Thailand, was founded in 1971 and has managed by a group of professionals with great experience under the name of Nava Nakorn

You can freely access to all destinations of Thailand. Nava Nakorn has easy access from Bangkok CBD. Nava Nakorn has 4 main ways to access from Bangkok CBD.

You can easy to recruit workers due to the location of Nava Nakorn is very close to many workforce supply centers. Nava Nakorn’s daytime population is around 150,000 to 200,000 and the nighttime population is around 100,000. Nava Nakorn is also a labor haven.

Edited October 19, 2011 by alexakap

[Payboy]

Nava Nakorn disaster: too little done too late

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation

<snip> I joined a petition on Twitter <snip>

<snip> and continued tweeting <snip>

<snip> Through Twitter, I eventually managed <snip>

<snip> there were plenty of detractors on Twitter <snip>

<snip> a Bangkok tweeter posted <snip>

<snip> When I voiced my disgust on Twitter <snip>

<snip> red and yellow-shirt blame games on Twitter <snip>

<snip> few people who had re-tweeted <snip>

<snip> leave a small note on Twitter yesterday <snip>

Could we as a society have saved Nava Nakorn? I don't know.

Dunno, may be one more tweet could have solved the problem?

[phiphidon]

Nava Nakorn disaster: too little done too late

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation

<snip> I joined a petition on Twitter <snip>

<snip> and continued tweeting <snip>

<snip> Through Twitter, I eventually managed <snip>

<snip> there were plenty of detractors on Twitter <snip>

<snip> a Bangkok tweeter posted <snip>

<snip> When I voiced my disgust on Twitter <snip>

<snip> red and yellow-shirt blame games on Twitter <snip>

<snip> few people who had re-tweeted <snip>

<snip> leave a small note on Twitter yesterday <snip>

Could we as a society have saved Nava Nakorn? I don't know.

Dunno, may be one more tweet could have solved the problem?

Compare and contrast with the Channel 3 TV broadcasters last year. Both out to make use of peoples suffering, The nations reporter sits on his bum tweeting and saying that the government is incompetent - but even CH 3 reporters whilst making promotional hay out of the (at the time) flood crisis last year got out amongst the people and organised supply drops. Yes it was purely promotional but it at the very least embarrassed the government of the time to get organised and start the aid effort going.

This guy just seems to be pushing a political angle with nothing else to add.

[gl555]

Nava Nakorn disaster: too little done too late

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation

<snip> I joined a petition on Twitter <snip>

<snip> and continued tweeting <snip>

<snip> Through Twitter, I eventually managed <snip>

<snip> there were plenty of detractors on Twitter <snip>

<snip> a Bangkok tweeter posted <snip>

<snip> When I voiced my disgust on Twitter <snip>

<snip> red and yellow-shirt blame games on Twitter <snip>

<snip> few people who had re-tweeted <snip>

<snip> leave a small note on Twitter yesterday <snip>

Could we as a society have saved Nava Nakorn? I don't know.

Dunno, may be one more tweet could have solved the problem?

Compare and contrast with the Channel 3 TV broadcasters last year. Both out to make use of peoples suffering, The nations reporter sits on his bum tweeting and saying that the government is incompetent - but even CH 3 reporters whilst making promotional hay out of the (at the time) flood crisis last year got out amongst the people and organised supply drops. Yes it was purely promotional but it at the very least embarrassed the government of the time to get organised and start the aid effort going.

This guy just seems to be pushing a political angle with nothing else to add.

He may be genuinely concerned. Or you could be right, he's just pushing a political angle. That doesn't make what he wrote about the government's incompetance wrong though.

[John1012]

"The governmemt's incompetance". Is this the current government, or many preceding governments? The politicians are short term, the departments and civil servants are long term. THEY really run the country, implementing and advising on policy. THEY are the ones who are incompetant, THEY are the ones who should have planned for this possibility, THEY are the ones who should have advised Yingluck and co. what should be done, who to use and how. As is is , there seems to be no plan, no co-ordination, just Mai Pen Rai. This has made the current government look incompetant. (I am not defending the people who were elected, any colour of politician would have looked the same). All due to no long term disaster planning, no central body for co-ordination, all due to employing incompetant bureaucrats who are self serving and under qualified. I wonder if the military have the same lack of gaming, (I hope not, they are supposed to be properly trained) what if, what do we do if this or that happens, lets plan for the unexpected, . What a bunch of T*ss*ers.

[mca]

Heaven forbid Khun Pravit should put down his frigging I Phone and go and the poor buggers help himself.

Edited October 19, 2011 by mca

[Jerrytheyoung]

water management, building drains,dykes and so on ... under a mastermind plan take years not month. The current Government has not any responsability in the flooding it should be shared by a dozen, at least, of governments starting 20 years ago.