Photo by Sethi de Clercq
You may have seen the news about the current flooding in Thailand. Pakkret was in Rachel Harvey’s report on BBC News a few days ago.
As you might expect, we’ve been following developments quite closely. More than a third of the country is underwater. Bangkok has been the focus of much of the media attention, but in the last few hours Pakkred has received the order to evacuate as the water reached chest height. (Some might say this was a bit late…)
This from the Bangkok Post:
All districts in Nonthaburi flooded
‘The flooding in Nonthaburi province has reached a critical level, with all districts now inundated, the provincial governor said on Wednesday. Nonthaburi governor Wichian Phuttiwinyu said all six districts were now flooded. Bang Bua Thong and Pakkret districts were the worst hit. A huge amount of floodwater from neighbouring Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani provinces has been flowing into Nonthaburi since Tuesday.’
We can only imagine how flooded our old soi (street) must be, given that it only took one heavy downpour to flood the kitchen and the front yard. Our old house was about 600 metres from the river (across flat ground) and CCD’s headquarters are a similar distance (see this map).
Improvised flood defences on Soi Wat Ku, the main road past CCD. Photo by Wasan Saenwian.
Praying people, please remember our friends and former colleagues at CCD as they endeavour to look after the children (all the cars and vans seem to have been parked on the motorway flyovers for safekeeping, so evacuation is made quite tricky!) as well as looking after their own homes and families elsewhere in the Bangkok area.
If you want to find out more, some good sources of information, links and photos are @thaifloodeng and #thaifloodeng on Twitter.
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