Govt vows to flush out flood water

Govt vows to flush out flood water

Chatchai wants runoff out to sea in 7 days

Boats supplied by the Royal Thai Navy, with their engines turned on, propel water from the lake in King Rama IX Park in Prawet district. (Photo by Somchai Poomlard)
Boats supplied by the Royal Thai Navy, with their engines turned on, propel water from the lake in King Rama IX Park in Prawet district. (Photo by Somchai Poomlard)

The government has set a deadline for the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) to push massive amounts of runoff from the North out to sea - seven days.

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Chatchai Sarikulya said the move will bring flooded provinces in the Central Plains back to normal within a month.

He said this could be achieved if the Chao Phraya barrage maintains its current release rate of water and the navy uses water-pushing machines to speed up the flow of the river into the Gulf of Thailand.

Gen Chatchai was speaking during his inspection of flooding in Chai Nat's Sapphaya district where the dam is situated.

To ease widespread floods, "This is the time to push the runoff out to the sea as fast as possible," he said.

The minister has instructed the RID to keep releasing water from the Chao Phraya barrage at 2,600 cubic metres a second for seven days.

If things go as planned, officials will gradually reduce the release rate which will subsequently bring down flooding levels in provinces, including Chai Nat, Sing Buri, Ang Thong and Ayutthaya, which the Chao Phraya River runs through.

These steps will take about one month to bring the water situation in these provinces back to normal. However, Gen Chatchai warned the amount of rainfall is still a wild card. The prospect he pictured will be achieved only if there is no weather depression or torrential rain at major dams in the North, he said.

At present, the Bhumibol dam on the Ping River and Sirikit dam on the Nan River have about 30% and 20% water storage capacity left respectively, Gen Chatchai said. There is no dam on the Yom River, but authorities are coping with heavy rainfall by diverting water to large riverside areas in Phichit and Sukhothai.

Irrigation officials have also used the same water diversion tactic along the Chao Phraya, into which the three rivers merge, to prevent the northern runoff from hitting Bangkok and neighbouring provinces, which are central to the national economy. So far, 12 vast fields along both sides of the Chao Phraya, used as kaem ling (monkey cheeks) water-retention areas, have reached 80% of their total capacity. They can hold an additional 300 million cu/m of water, Gen Chatchai said.

Meanwhile, the RID reiterated that ongoing flooding in the Central Plains will be less severe than the flooding in 2011, which left vast areas of Bangkok under water. That year, the water flow measured at the Chao Phraya barrage was 3,610 cu/m a second, but it now only stands at "2,598 cu/m a second to be exact," deputy department chief Thongplew Kongjun said Wednesday.

However, he shared the same concerns over unpredictable rainfall as Gen Chatchai. Bangkokians have to brace for new rounds of downpours until next Monday due mainly to monsoons, he said.

Officials have been told to monitor monsoons in the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand as well as "the influence of a low pressure system from China that is pushing rainfall down to the lower Central Plains, the upper South and the East," Mr Thongplew said.

In Lop Buri, which is in the Central Plains, a large pond was broken, irrigation officials admitted Wednesday, adding repairs had now been carried out.

They said water burst from the pond in Khok Samrong district Wednesday, but it will not affect nearby areas, especially the flood-prone Ban Mi district.

About half of the 600,000 cu/m of water in the pond was believed to have flowed into Pla Mo creek, but this will not lead to overflow, officials claimed.

In the Northeast, officials will maintain the release rate of water from Ubon Rat dam at 50 million cu/m a day until its currently high level is brought to a safe limit. Yesterday the amount of water was measured at 2,893 million cu/m, which equates to nearly 120% of the reservoir's capacity.

Water from the dam, which is flowing into the Chi and Phong rivers, has flooded many villages in Khon Kaen's Muang district. Local officials are planning for an evacuation of the area. "We've prepared an area and tents for evacuation," Muang district chief Chatchai Uncharoen said.

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