Floodwater Spreading Into Inner Bangkok

[ScouseTommy]

A meeting at 10am TODAY, to provide water pumps!!! Unbelievable really why werent water pumps being bought in bulk for all of bkk 3 weeks ago!!! Pervious governments did nothing to prepare for this, BUT the current government have been absolutely useless trying to score political points at the expense of the Thai people!!! Please forget about losing face and start asking for international help before more people start to starve!!!

Seriously? Why would the previous government prepare for this when they had no knowledge it was going to happen?

In all seriousness, because it has happened in 1992 and 1995 mate!!! Also BKK is sinking and directly in the way of the Northern water run off!! Also because they have been advised to by Professors at the top Universities and By the HM King himself!! Oh and also the influx of fat farang to sukhumvit doesnt help either

In that case blame it on the Thaksin regime and every other government in power beforehand. You'd also have to blame it on beer singha, leo and others respectively for fueling the fat which is leading to sinkage.

Blame issued equally........ and dam_n them beer producers. However maybe we can use some fatties to plug the gaps in the flood walls

[Thai at Heart]

Blame issued equally........ and dam_n them beer producers. However maybe we can use some fatties to plug the gaps in the flood walls

on the subject of beer, if Malaysia is apparently supplying bottled water to Thailand, would it be too much to ask the Thai beer producers simply to boil water and simply distribute water instead of beer? Some would say, the heineken drinkers might not notice the difference, but when you have so many ice and soft drinks producers in the country with an enormous capacity to produce clean water, how can it be that Thailand needs to import from Malaysia.

Edited November 7, 2011 by Thai at Heart

[Tatsujin]

You are all idiots and looking at this completely wrong lol . . . this whole flood situation was engineered deliberately by the Government in conjunction with the TAT with the sole and overriding purpose of increasing tourism. The idea is to allow BKK to flood, raise all the buildings up on stilts and rename it the "Venice of the East" which is (of course) going to increase the amount of tourists that want a taste of Italy whilst in Asia. Makes sense, right? <grins>

[aries]

"I get bored with the old "climate change" chestnut being thrown up all the time."

This lack of understanding of the climate change issue by you and your posts is incredible to behold. And this is the absolute perfect forum for discussing these increasingly serious climate change issues as the floods in BKK are an ever increasing reality of man made global warming coupled with extreme population and building growth stressing the swamp lands BKK is built on.

I don't think you quite understand how climate change works and why what is happening in BKK is exactly the proof that you so deny. The problem with all of the deniers is you do not ask the correct questions, you only listen to talking heads instead of actually analysing the root causes which is what empirical scientific evidence and peer review completes. There is very little dissension in the scientific community with at least 95% of scientists in full agreement with the evidence presented thus far and more evidence being compiled daily.

Nor do you seem to realize that the people who have dedicated decades of their lives studying climate changing phenomena have long accounted for natural changes and natural cycles in their work. Your very rudimentary grasp of the theory (read up on what a theory actually is rather than use the word with no knowledge of the work behind a theory) relies on using the words cycle and "isn't this supposed to cause droughts", this shows a complete lack of understanding of even basic climatology let alone something as complex as the whole climate model. Just so you can add a little intelligence to your posts in the future; when the climate warms you get more evaporation from the sea, this leads to more rainfall in areas prone to rainfall and less in areas with already little rainfall, the reason being is the weather systems carrying the currents are now more heavily laden with moisture from evaporation and as soon as they make landfall (or hit a large mountain range such as the Himalaya) precipitation increases, guess where the Chao Praya and other rivers in Thailand get their water from?.

Couple this with being inside another weather cycle of El Nino and La Nina and you begin to understand that the hotter the planet gets the more precipitation areas like Thailand and the Indian sub-continent get. The reasons are many fold but are heavily studied and show an increasing man made intervention from the burning of fossil fuels. The more clouds you have the less heat escapes from the earth as it is reflected back to the sea, this further heating the sea and further increasing evaporation. This is just a very minor part of the whole which includes more heat speeding up glacier slip through ice ablation and increasing the fresh water content in the seas and hundreds of other highly studied areas, these are just examples for you to work with.

Thailand as a whole and Bangkok are now suffering from increased precipitation, increased run off from the Himalaya range as the glaciers recede and put even more pressure on the original water flow, increased agricultural deforestation (which stops the land absorbing the increased rainfall), bad water management in general and increased fossil fuel usage through the burning of ever more fossil fuels to fuel the economic growth of the country, thereby expanding the problems exponentially. All of these items (and very much more) are constantly monitored by climatologists, reviewed and then enter the empirical evidence of climate change. As others have said there has been a recent bi-partisan study conducted by mainly climate change deniers, you can read all about it here http://berkeleyearth..._Summary_20_Oct and here http://berkeleyearth.org/

The words "it's a cycle" are akin to saying"a wizard did it." You aren't asking questions and you aren't considering whether, cycle or not, our civilization is at risk of self-destructing. Even assuming this is a cycle, why is the 'cycle' happening faster than it did in any period historically? Why are the effects of the 'cycle' more pronounced now than in historical counterparts? How can we minimize the damage that this 'cycle' will cause?

Maybe it's simpler for you to say "I get bored with the old "climate change" chestnut being thrown up all the time." because you have everything in your life handed to you on a nice silver platter. Ignoring the serious ramifications of climate change, whether you believe it is man made or not, won't be an option for most of the world, including as can be easily seen, Bangkok. Food is already a scarcity in a large chunk of the world due to increasing droughts in some areas and increasing rainfall in others putting stress on the food chain, now couple that with a disaster like Bangkok and you begin to see the problem. Drinkable water too is becoming a commodity as increasing droughts and increased usage lower the water tables of the world, increasing ice ablation reduces the amount of fresh water available as the glaciers melt, and no one yet knows what kind of havoc this aspect of climate change will wreak on the global food supply alone. Not to mention the damage to infrastructure,geopolitical instability, etc.

I'm not saying using a recycling bin will solve the problem, especially given our current recycling techniques are redundant and wasteful or that we should ignore all of these signs, what I am saying is that your myopic view of climate change is governed by ridiculous climate change deniers that have an economic perspective on the theory and who actively campaign to deny climate change, a perfect example of this is Exxon, who have paid "scientists" (I use that term loosely) to discredit research, even going so far as to actively encourage dissent by paying $10k per paper discrediting research (this is a huge amount of money to a PhD student and many have used this payment scheme to pay their way through university), the Koch Brothers who funded the Berkeley Earth study have also paid into PR and other "scientific" results to discredit real empirical data. Exxon was the first group ever to be told to stop these practices by the scientific community as there is no evidence anywhere, that is peer reviewed and supported, against the various climate change models and the evidence that increasingly supports the theory. Exxon and their kind have now resorted to insidious PR campaigns making themselves appear greener to counteract the reality of man made climate change.

What I am saying is that plugging your ears and saying"cycle cycle cycle!" isn't productive. You go on believing what you wish to believe. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is going to act like grown-ups and take action as, can be plainly seen in this current crisis affecting Thailand, the consequences are much more far reaching than your limited understanding can comprehend. The health and welfare issues are not even beginning to trickle to the surface here yet, let alone the economic issues resulting from this flood, it would be better if you actually researched a subject instead of just listening to talking heads.

Now when you understand that the climate change deniers have focused on an only one email and that has been debunked several times maybe you can open your mind. Below you will find the links that have not been reported by your "side" of this non-existent debate

http://www.nsf.gov/o...h/A09120086.pdf

http://www.uea.ac.uk...tements/oxburgh

http://live.psu.edu/story/47378

Edited November 7, 2011 by aries

[TeddyFlyfisherDavis]

... this is as watching a train wreck, in slow motion ... and billions of m3 of water still to pass ... we evacuated, then returned in the middle of last week.

... now believing only what we see and but half of what we hear, we are preparing to re-evacuate.

... our lives and businesses are suspended in a vacuum of freakish incompetence ... what could possibly sabotage the resources available in this modern age of technology and communication?

... this is all so ... absurd.

Can anyone spell >New Orleans...<...?

[dmcguire70]

Also, don't forget the animal farting. We raise and eat these animals so we are responsible for that as well.

We aren't responsible for them farting ,that would be the cows fault ,however it is our fault there is so much methane released into the atmosphere

because there are too many people on the planet.

Edited November 7, 2011 by dmcguire70

[bladesama]

Also, don't forget the animal farting. We raise and eat these animals so we are responsible for that as well.

We aren't responsible for them farting ,that would be the cows fault ,however it is our fault there is so much methane released into the atmosphere

because there are to many people on the planet.

i have to admit im a big contributor to that

[Jingthing]

Also, don't forget the animal farting. We raise and eat these animals so we are responsible for that as well.

We aren't responsible for them farting ,that would be the cows fault ,however it is our fault there is so much methane released into the atmosphere

because there are to many people on the planet.

You're splitting farts. They wouldn't exist in their numbers to be farting if man hadn't cleared all that land to raise them on as a food source.

[MaxYakov]

The fact is Bangkok will have to be moved.

I totally agree with that but what are the chances this will happen in a rational, planned way? People say this current crisis is a 50 year event. That will prove to be totally wrong given current global climate PLUS the mostly man made problems in Thailand. More like 5 year event or less in the current reality.

The only movement Bangkok will be doing is in the vertical.

Edited November 7, 2011 by MaxYakov

[allan michaud]

"The bureaucracy in this country is run by largely ineffectual powerbrokers who continue to stifle good, honest, hard working smart people to the point that their voice is never heard. Plenty of people must have known what was coming, but their voice didn't get up the line."

Absolutely spot on and covers just about everything that is wrong in Thailand and similarly run countries, where nepotism or good old fashioned cash gets you the job, not competence or experience.

[FOODLOVER]

Pattaya - Next capital of Thailand !

Yay!

[Jingthing]

Pattaya - Next capital of Thailand !

Yay!

Be careful what you wish for.

[dmcguire70]

Also, don't forget the animal farting. We raise and eat these animals so we are responsible for that as well.

We aren't responsible for them farting ,that would be the cows fault ,however it is our fault there is so much methane released into the atmosphere

because there are to many people on the planet.

i have to admit im a big contributor to that

Yes us humans contribute ,but i was referring to all the domestic animals that are farmed so that we humans have enough food to eat that contributes to the majority of methane released onto the troposphere.

Now where were we again? Oh yeah the floods...

[Thai at Heart]

The fact is Bangkok will have to be moved.

I totally agree with that but what are the chances this will happen in a rational, planned way? People say this current crisis is a 50 year event. That will prove to be totally wrong given current global climate PLUS the mostly man made problems in Thailand. More like 5 year event or less in the current reality.

This will happen on its own. The amount of people buying property up country from Bangkok is rising day by day. Some for investment, but believe me, in the town where I have a property, people from Bangkok are investing very aggressively partly because of how close they came to getting deluged last year don't forget, for at least the last 2 years. Who the hell wants to buy a property in an area that has just gone under water for a month? The property business in those areas of the city will take a hammering and people will eventually leave slowly but surely. This is going to have a fast instant effect on certain parts of Bangkok, followed by a trickle effect of business and people moving away.

Furthermore, for all the workers who have gone back home, with the factories probably at least 2 months away from being anywhere near to being operational (if ever again in some cases), many won't go back. The attraction for everyone to stay in Bangkok was dubious at best, but it did offer some economic benefits and opportunities to migrant workers. I don't believe that these industrial estates will recover, some will relocate, and it will be a long way away from Bangkok. I expect each large provincial city to start building new industrial estates because the idea of having so many in the flood path North of Bangkok has been proven to be extremely stupid to say the least. Would you want to invest in a facility in there? They will become ghost estates slowly but surely.

The character and future of Bangkok will be changed very significantly by this event.

Beyond this, my wife keeps reminding me about a story she has heard somewhere about a prediction that Bangkok will be completely inundated which was predicted a long time ago. Call it old (or mid- 30's in my case) wive's tales, but these stories have a very strong effect in Thailand.

Edited November 7, 2011 by Thai at Heart

[snooky]

This may be off topic, but does the BMA have a fleet of fireboats ready for the upcoming conflagration on Thursday. It's Loy Kratong and no matter what Government warnings (if any) there will probably be zillions of people trying to celebrate by floating their Kratongs - and since the river is at their doorstep, why bother to go to the river itself, just float it out of their doorways. ?? Even though most are wet, with all the wooden houses and loose curtains flapping around, not to mention several million cannisters of cooking gas, we might have a great bonfire. Get out your marshmallows!

Hope you all have fire insurance!

[sfbandung]

"Or even moving the entire city."

How about waiting until it actualy happens. More climate change scare-mongering.

so your still denying climate change despite all the evidence? are you blind? you are now in a very very tiny minority, even the most skeptical have changed their tune in recent years. the only real debate is whether humans are the cause. Bangkok will be underwater permanently, it is just a question of time.

If you read a little further you'd have seen that I accept the climate is changing. It always does. The debate is now about whether it is man made or not. And despite Aries' Tolstoy-like response to my original comment the jury is still very much out.

As an Australian (albeit an absentee one) I'm offended by the fact that the nation must now endure a ridiculous carbon tax because we have a hung parliament and Gillard must pander to "climate change evangilists" (hell, if someone can call me a "climate change skeptic" they deserve a moniker too).

And it's "so you're still denying ...". And start new sentences with a capital letter, please.

Cheers, sf

Reason for edit: correcting typos

Edited November 7, 2011 by sfbandung

[ludditeman]

Yes us humans contribute ,but i was referring to all the domestic animals that are farmed so that we humans have enough food to eat that contributes to the majority of methane released onto the troposphere.

Now where were we again? Oh yeah the floods...

Most methane produced by living creatures comes from termites, most other greenhouse gas comes from volcanic activity.

Humans have very little to do with it.

[Crushdepth]

show me one scientist.. who disputes the fact i just stated... you will not find one

All of the scientists I work with think that human activities are responsible for a very large chunk of climate change. You have got this completely arse about. Please do not misrepresent the weight of the consensus, if you don't want to believe fine, but don't pretend everyone agrees with your opinion.

[merlen10002]

... this is as watching a train wreck, in slow motion ... and billions of m3 of water still to pass ... we evacuated, then returned in the middle of last week.

... now believing only what we see and but half of what we hear, we are preparing to re-evacuate.

... our lives and businesses are suspended in a vacuum of freakish incompetence ... what could possibly sabotage the resources available in this modern age of technology and communication?

... this is all so ... absurd.

I suggest you buy a TV set,, it is a thing where people give uptodate comments on the flood, minute by minute, it help you to know what to do, they even have government people speaking and maps and all sorts of things to let the public know what is going on with the flood. really if you don't know what the water is doing in your area you must have serious sight and hearing problem.

[Scott]

This topic is about floodwater spreading in inner Bangkok. It is not about climate change. Further off-topics will be deleted.

Please stay on topic.

[landofthefree]

<br />Here we go...<br /><br />The very, very same scenario it has already flooded my house.<br />My condolences to all Bkk residents, as there was NOONE competent while the water was far away and flooded my house @Pathum - and here is NOONE competent after these 3 weeks, to protect the inner Bkk (which of course much MORE difficult than protecting spreaded moobaans on the flats up north) . NOONE. We was at our own, and now you bangkokians - at your own only. Govt?? Don't make me laugh. FROC? Gimme a break...don't even cross your fingers. <br /><br />...and be prepared for looong story: here on Pathumthani the flood has come 3 weeks ago, and till now no any good news. <br />Those who able to go other places - please go now, tomorrow would be inpassable roads and lots of traffic everywhere on expressway.<br /><br />PS: aaahh, I forgot: "Inner Bkk is 100% safe!", and "Please be patient!". Everything in order and as planned..."na ja!"<br /><img src="http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/images/full/2011/07/04/124294-yingluck-shinawatra.jpg" /><br />

<br /><br /><br />

I don't care how much you guys bad mouth her I can't ever think anything too bad about a girl with her looks!

[Tanaka]

The Thai Government better start to pump huge amounts of money into Pattaya for a Sky Train, an underground system, designated areas for government departments, Commecial parks for new Office buildings, etc... etc... because Pattaya will be the capital city when Bangkok goes "waterworld"

Doing this will be far cheaper that trying to save a doomed city. I can see Pattaya becoming more like Rio in Brazil (But not quite as nice).

i have to leave this site now because to many moron here... Jesus or budha what can Leo do pattaya addicts just check with your doctor

Too many? Oh well, it takes one to know one. But dont forget to come back with your expertise in a couple of weeks time. I am sure the government would appreciate your efforts.

[sfbandung]

This topic is about floodwater spreading in inner Bangkok. It is not about climate change. Further off-topics will be deleted.

Please stay on topic.

Copy that Scott. Message received and understood. My original reply was based on a direct quote from the article though, I didn't mean to fire this up.

[Scott]

Eight off-topic posts and replies to them have been deleted. If you want to continue with an inflammatory discussion of climate change, then you will find yourself in the suspension bin for a time.

The topic of climate and these floods will no doubt be a topic which will come up and be written about once the current issue is done. It is, however, not the topic of this thread.

[Scott]

Make that 9 posts deleted.

[lounger]

Unfortunately we have to do our own flood modelling/predictions as officials are unable, incapable or unwilling to do it. This is mine.

The northern runoff is continuing south as it seeks a way to the sea. It is making its way gradually through the suburbs and there is nothing to stop it swamping the inner city. I work on the basis it will be in my area of Phra Khanong somewhere in the next 30-60 hours. I have prepared supplies to stick it out in my condo, but (in the absence of any meaningful official pronouncement to the contrary) fear it could be over 1m and knock out electricity - in which case I could not work. Therefore I am exiting Bangkok Tuesday noon for at least a week.

The main electricity risk is not that it will be knocked off but that it will be left connected. Most deaths during the flooding have been caused by electrocution. That water is 'live'.

[misterjag]

Give it to the Dutch , they know what to do , their country has big surfaces UNDER sea level , great water managing experts.

Deltares was hired to advise the Thai government in mid October, but of course they should have been consulted years ago.

[KHR1010]

Ramkhamhaeng and bangkapi is still high and dry.

I am quite sure it will stay that way.

Really, all this water and you think it will stay out of your area...good luck!!!!

[Thaddeus]

Give it to the Dutch , they know what to do , their country has big surfaces UNDER sea level , great water managing experts.

Deltares was hired to advise the Thai government in mid October, but of course they should have been consulted years ago.

The Dutch were consulted years before that, nothing happened.

[harryfrompattaya]

It might be not be popular but taxes must increased at least 500 per cent on beer and tobacco.

And maybe even a Farang tax of at least 80,000 baht a year. The ones with Hi So wives should at 200,000

We Farangs are living here we should our fair share.

Unt