THAILAND: Floods expose system failures: Academics

Thailand's worst floods since the 1940s have claimed nearly 400 lives during the past two months. Universities were closed in October for the semester break. The start of the new semester, due to begin on Tuesday, has been postponed to 14 November and national university admissions examinations have also been delayed.

Four tropical storms and heavy monsoon rains since July have also affected other Southeast Asian countries including Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines. But Thailand has suffered the highest death toll.

Many buildings have been protected by hastily built sand-bag walls and other flood defences. University buildings, such as at King Mongkut University of Technology in southern Bangkok, were designated as flood evacuation centres in October, and many industrial areas were hit and factories closed.

By 30 October a number of universities had been flooded. Kasetsart University in Bangkok's Bang Khen district was affected by flood waters around 40 centimetres deep, according to reports, and at Thammasat University in the city water was 50 centimetres deep.

At Thammasat's Rangsit campus, just outside Bangkok, on 23 October water poured into the ground floor of the gymnasium, which had earlier housed evacuated flood victims from surrounding areas.

Vice-rector Kampol Ruchiwit described the campus as an "island" with high water surrounding it, 1.5 metres deep in some parts. Thammasat University hospital had to evacuate patients to other areas.

But nature is not purely to blame for the devastation affecting the country. Academics say mismanagement has played a big role, with responsibility for water management shared by at least 28 Thai agencies.

A slow, inefficient and overlapping bureaucratic system is believed to have exacerbated a crisis of unpreparedness.

Siripan Noksuan Sawasdee, a comparative politics lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, said the "vertical line of order" typical of Thailand's bureaucratic system, together with natural misfortune, was also to blame.

"If we want to prepare for the worst next year, we need to overhaul the bureaucratic system to make it more functional" she told University World News.

"Once I called up the department of water resources to find out their take on the floods. They shied away from responsibility and said they were only responsible for resources development. It reflects how uncoordinated agencies in the Thai bureaucratic system are."

The country could also have been considerably better prepared. "Simple things they can do right away that would be very effective would be to start reviewing urban planning, unclogging waterways and relocating industrial areas, for example," Sawasdee said.

Meanwhile, the way dam waters are managed has been subjected to scrutiny. Decisions to discharge water from dams ultimately rest with Thai politicians and are a cabinet decision, but there are some 60 agencies also involved in such a decision.

Bhumibol and Sirikit dams, situated in Northern Thailand's Tak and Pitsanulok provinces, with a full capacity of around 13,000 million cubic metres, were found to be retaining more than 90% of water in September. Normally at that time of the year capacity needs to be lower to prepare to receive storm water, experts said.

Both dams released around 7,000 million cubic metres of water in August. That, combined with heavier than usual tropical rainstorms, caused an extraordinarily large amount of water to flow out, affecting 60 of Thailand's 77 provinces with flood waters up to two metres deep.

Chaiyuth Suksri, a water engineering lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, said since Thailand had experienced a drought last summer, the irrigation department did not foresee unusually high amounts of water this year and release water from the dams in a timely manner.

According to information from the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, one of the agencies responsible for decisions on whether to release the water, the amount of rainfall flowing into dams this year has been the highest since Bhumibol dam was built in 1954. This is due to the Heima and Nok-ten tropical storms during July, August and September.

Chaiyuth, who worked in Thailand's irrigation department for 12 years before becoming a lecturer at Chulalongkorn, also noted that current information may be out of date and does not take into account effects of climate change. Thai textbooks about water and dam management date back to 1972, he said.

"Most experts in the irrigation department have been working on water issues for quite a long time - too long. I think they may have become too confident and not aware of the many changes that have taken place over the years," said Chaiyuth.


Comment:

The 2011 Thailand flood not only highlights poor decision making on water management but the huge divide between the two major political parties and the powers provided to different parties by the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Act whereby the national government does not have total control of key areas, including Bangkok.

The slowing down of the water flow by the Bangkok governor in his futile attempts to stop Bangkok from being flooded has seen the flood spread wider and last longer than it should have, while the high level of corruption in the country, particularly within the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, has seen drainage canals blocked by golf courses and housing estates.

The latest estimate is that Thailand's GDP for 2011 will drop to 1.75-34% below 1997 GDP when the Asian Economic Crisis began in Thailand.

What Thailand needs to do is drain the water as fast as possible so that industry, which contributes about 46% of GDP, can be restored as soon as possible. Other issues, such as the high level of corruption and non accountability, are probably far beyond being tackled adequately.

John Le Fevre

We have to put a stop to playing the "blame game". Somewhere along the line, where the academics are also situated, something went wrong. The academics themselves cannot be spared from criticism for not offering their knowledge (theory/application) beforehand and outright when the crippling devastation was projected to happen and is happening.

The leadership of Prime Minister Yingluck has boosted the Thai spirit and hopefully they will come together to resolve the problem. Knowing the discipline of the Thais, they will overcome and even be on top of the situation. God bless the Thais.

Leodegardo M Pruna