Prayuth Khamken, the owner of a vegetable farm in Nakorn Phatom province near Bangkok has left his land under more than a metre of water. Floods diverted from the capital swamped his farm in Puthamonthon Sai 2 district, leaving him nearly neck-high in water.
"The flood has destroyed my farm 100 percent," said Prayuth, who has been growing organic vegetables for the Bangkok market for many years. "I'm taking my family to Lamphun province in the north where I own some land," he said. "Maybe we won't come back."
Thailand's monsoon season, which normally lasts from May to October, has been unusually long and heavy this year, triggering the worst floods in decades.
Over the past two months, the floods have claimed at least 381 lives and could cause up to 500 billion baht (16.6 billion dollars) in damages. Floods are the norm every wet season, but they have been unusually devastating this year, partly because of mismanagement of the water resources.
Heavy rains and a series of storms earlier this monsoon season raised the water level at two giant hydroelectric dams, the Bhumibol and Sirikit in Nan and Uttaradit provinces, to over-capacity, forcing the government to unleash an avalanche of water at the beginning of October into tributaries leading to the Chao Phraya River that runs through Bangkok.
Had the water been released from the dams gradually, starting in July, the disaster might have been avoided, according to Smith Dharmasaroja, director of the Natural Disaster Warning Foundation.
Smith claims that this year's flooding catastrophe was 80 percent human error, a claim the government doesn't appreciate. The runoff has already laid waste to the central provinces of Nakorn Sawan, Chai Nat, Ayuttaya and Pathum Thani, as it overflowed the banks of the Chao Phraya in mid-October en route to Bangkok and the sea.
Now the runoff from those provinces, estimated at anywhere from 4,000 million to 15,000 million cubic metres, threatens to engulf the capital. The government has given priority to save Bangkok, especially the inner city, by diverting the waters to the east and west of the capital towards the Gulf of Thailand. The policy led to the inundation of Nonthaburi province, which borders Bangkok to the north, nearly two weeks ago.
"The water came into our house slowly, rising about 5 centimetres a day until it was a metre high," said Apichai Srisuk, who was taking the day off Sunday to visit his mother in their swamped house. "Four days ago, they caught a crocodile in our neighbourhood," Apichai said. "I have no idea how it got there since there are no crocodile farms near our home." Parts of the Thonburi area of west Bangkok flooded over the weekend as the Chao Phraya swelled to more than 2.5 metres of above sea level, breached dykes and overflowed canals.
The flooding forced the government to restrict piping tap water to several Thonburi districts. "The government has announced they will limit the tap water which means you can only shower two times a day," said Nattaporn Boonthawatchai, whose family lives in a housing estate in Ratchapreuk district of Thonburi. "We've decided to move the family to Chiang Mai for a few weeks until the danger has passed," she said. "The government claims the water will only be 10 to 20 centimetres but I don't believe them anymore. Nobody's knows the power of water."
The water flow was expected to peak this weekend, when the city faced a duel threat of runoff from the provinces and a swollen Chao Phraya River, because of high tides in the Gulf of Thailand. If the government can keep pumping water into the neighbouring provinces, and keep the Chao Phraya within its banks, there is a chance it can still save most of the capital. "If we can survive the next week I think Bangkok will have made it, because pretty soon the tide in Gulf of Thailand will go back down," Smith predicted. "Luckily for Bangkok, there has been no heavy rain this weekend."
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