Bangkok’s defences tested against high tides flood surge

Peak tides tested Bangkok’s flood defences last night as hope rose that the centre of the Thai capital might escape the worst floods in decades. But that was little comfort for swamped suburbs and provinces where worry about disease is growing.

The floods have killed at least 381 people since July and affected more than two million.

Water flowing down the central Chao Phraya river basin from the north is meeting peak tides surging in the Gulf of Thailand, 12 miles south of Bangkok, leading to fears the city’s makeshift defences would be swamped.

The tides have pushed water in the river, which snakes its way through the city past gilded temples and wooden shanties, about eight feet above sea level but dikes and sandbag walls have largely held.

Prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, a political novice, said the city’s fate rested with its network of defences.

“It depends on the level of the sea and sometimes it’s about the stability of the way we put the sandbags,” she told reporters.

“Hopefully, the sandbags are quite strong enough. So if the sandbags don’t fall over, it should be OK,” the prime minister added.

The high tides are due to last until today. Yesterday’s tide was not quite as high as Saturday’s.

Authorities trying to divert water around the city and out to sea said a “great volume” was flowing from the north into a canal in western Taling Chan district and people were being advised to leave.

Most people living in Thon- buri, on the west bank of the Chao Phraya, have been struggling in waist-deep water for several days to save possessions.

People in Thonburi’s Bang Phlad neighbourhood battled in vain to shore up a crumbling sandbag wall and women screamed as water from the swollen river surged into a commercial street.

Several parts of north Bangkok are also swamped, while provinces just north, such as Pathun Thani and Ayutthaya, have been largely inundated for weeks. Fears about water-borne diseases and malaria are growing.

Matthew Cochrane’ of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ said the situation was critical. Many people were living in floodwater without access to food and water.

“There are more than two million people who have been affected over the past few months. Many of them are still affected,” Mr Cochrane said.

As well as the growing risk of diarrhoea and mosquito-borne diseases, skin infections were a major problem, he said.

In some areas, crocodiles have escaped from flooded farms and snakes searching for dry land have slithered into homes.

The floods have submerged four million acres and follow unusually heavy monsoon rain. But there have been accusations that authorities delayed releasing water from dams. By the time they had to release it or risk dams bursting, rain was heavy and rivers full.

The worst floods in half a century have also wiped out a quarter of the main rice crop in the world’s biggest exporter.

The waters also inundated seven industrial estates that have sprung up over the past 20 years on what used to be the central plain’s rice-growing lands.

Thailand is the second-largest exporter of computer hard drives and global prices are rising because of a flood-related shortage of major components used in personal computers.