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BMA officials admit they cannot cope with heavy rains as experts blame infrastructure and lack of preparedness.
BANGKOK
WILL continue to experience flooding after heavy rains unless
water-drainage problems including roads and canals are solved,
water-management experts have said.
Heavy rain was to blame for
yesterday’s floods in 25 areas around Bangkok after up to 170
millimetres of rain fell on the capital on Wednesday night, the Bangkok
Metropolitan Administration (BMA) stated.
Bangkok faced the
prospect of more flooding as the Meteorological Department predicted
more heavy rains last night and this morning.
The heavy rains turned many streets of the city into canals and
seriously worsened rush-hour traffic, causing many commuters to arrive
late at work or school. One of the worst flooded areas was the Lat Phrao
intersection at Ratchadaphisek Road, where the floodwaters reached
about 30 centimetres and seriously disrupted traffic.
“Moreover, we could not drain the floodwater out of the street
properly, because the canals were already full of water from the rains,
even though we had decreased the water levels in the canals in advance.”
Sitang Pilailar, a lecturer at the Water Resources Engineering
Department at Kasetsart University, said the reasons the BMA cited were
chronic problems for the city.
“Bangkok will still flood every
time after heavy rain, if the water cannot drain from the roads to the
drainage pipes and to the canals properly,” Sitang said.
She said
the first problem was that the drainage system mixed with the sewer
system, so pipes were already full of wastewater. Moreover, during the
floods in 2011, sand was dumped into the drainage system that had not
been cleared out completely, lessening the capacity of the city’s
drainage pipes by half.
Another problem was lack of preparation
before the rain, Sitang said, adding the BMA usually received weather
predictions from the Meteorological Department so water levels in the
canals could be lowered in advance, but this time the BMA had not
performed well.
“In addition to these problems, we still have the
issue that many old communities suffer from chronic flooding because
their location is lower than street level, so the water from the road
drains into their communities instead of into the drainage pipes. The
garbage in the drainage system is also significant, as many people still
throw litter into drainage pipes and canals,” Sitang said.
“This
is a task for all of us to tackle. The BMA has to be better prepared
for flooding and maintain the drainage system to make sure that it can
work properly, while the people also have to avoid clogging the drainage
system with garbage if we want to sustainably solve the flooding
problem in Bangkok.”
Source - TheNation
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