Thailand Prime Minister assumes emergency powers as scope of flooding disaster widens

October 21, 2011 – BANGKOK – Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Friday assumed powers under the natural disaster law giving her full authority to implement a nationwide disaster relief plan. Invoking the provisions of the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Act (2007) gives the prime minister full authority over state officials around the country. Those who refuse to follow orders can be prosecuted for negligence of duty. The prime minister becomes director of the relief operation. Ms Yingluck said the move was necessary to streamline relief operations. She has ordered the Defence Ministry and the army to oversee and protect key places including the Grand Palace, other palaces, Siriraj Hospital, flood barrier lines, utilities providers, and Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports. The government has struggled to channel the massive amount of water that has caused widespread flooding in the country’s Central Plains, around the outskirts of Bangkok. The floods are the worst in at least five decades. It was expected the flood would starting flowing into the Bangkok city area overnight. The government is struggling to channel as much the water as possible out to the sea through the sacrificed eastern and western outskirts of the capital. Meanwhile efforts were under way to protect the Lat Krabang industrial estate after the Bangkradi industrial state in Pathum Thani was totally flooded today, with reports the water was about two metres deep. –Bangkok Post

A city under threat: Millions of nervous Bangkok residents were warned Friday to move their belongings to safety as the kingdom’s worst floods in decades began pouring into the northern outskirts of the sprawling city. In a desperate attempt to drain the mass of muddy water, the authorities have opened all of Bangkok’s sluice gates to allow the floods to flow through canals and rivers in the low-lying capital and into the Gulf of Thailand. The move should ease pressure on vulnerable flood barriers on the northern edge of the city of 12 million people, but increases the threat to Bangkok itself, where some outlying residential areas were inundated on Friday. People were advised to move their possessions to higher floors or safe areas after the government admitted the sea of water bearing down on the capital from the central plains was unstoppable. “I ask all Bangkok residents to move your belongings to higher ground as a precaution, but they should not panic. It’s preparation,” said Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who has described the crisis as “overwhelming.” Three months of heavy monsoon rains have killed at least 342 people in Thailand and damaged the homes and livelihoods of millions of others, mostly in the north and centre. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to seek refuge in shelters, including 33-year-old Nonglak Yodnankham who fled the approaching water in Pathumthani province just north of Bangkok. –TD 

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