Thai government says ‘flooding is beyond our control now’ – ‘The amount of water is gigantic’ says PM
By Anuchit Nguyen and Supunnabul Suwannakij
27 October 2011 Thailand’s government said it is losing the battle to protect Bangkok from rising floodwaters, and plans to open evacuation centers in eight provinces as the deluge forces more residents to give up their homes. “The flooding is beyond our control now,” said Pracha Promnog, who heads the government’s flood relief operations. “The main wave of water hasn’t arrived in Bangkok yet.” Diverting a three-meter-deep wall of water that is edging toward the capital is key to sparing the city of 9.7 million people from the severity of floods that have damaged about 10,000 factories north of the city. Authorities released large amounts of water earlier this month down a flood plain the size of Florida with Bangkok at its southern tip, after monsoon rains about 25 percent above the 30-year average filled dams to the north of the capital to capacity. “We are trying to resist the nature of water,” Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said today. “We won’t be able to achieve that because there is such a large amount of water approaching Bangkok.” Yingluck said all areas of Bangkok may be flooded for as long as a month. Yesterday, she said there was a “50-50” chance of avoiding a city-wide deluge. Conflicting warnings from the government have fueled panic buying of water and food, and some residents and foreign executives have left the capital as floodwaters seep into outlying districts. Water levels in parts of Bangkok may reach as high as 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) if a major breach occurs in dikes to the north of the capital, with depths reaching about 50 centimeters in most places, Yingluck said yesterday. Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said the timing and the severity of flooding remains unclear. “Bangkok will definitely be inundated but it is very difficult to have a clear estimation on the amount and timing of water,” he said at a seminar today. “It depends on the government’s strategy on water management.” Residents were evacuated overnight from Don Mueang in the north and Bang Plad in the west, Sukhumbhand said. Authorities started evacuating people from the northern district of Sai Mai today as more water broke through levees, he said. […] The biggest mass of water is still about 30 kilometers north of Bangkok, said Anond Snidvongs, executive director of the government’s Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency. The amount water now seeping into northern Bangkok is “so small we don’t even see it on satellite maps,” he said Oct. 25.
Bangkok Floods ’Beyond Our Control’: Thai Government 
By SETH MYDANS
27 October 2011 BANGKOK – As floodwaters bore down on the center of Bangkok, with outlying neighborhoods already under several feet of water, the city’s bus and train stations were jammed on Thursday with tens of thousands of refugees racing away from the coming deluge. The level of danger to various neighborhoods is uncertain and Bangkok is now a city of rumors, panic buying and hastily built walls of sand bags and cement around shops and homes. The flooding started three months ago with heavy rain and what seemed a badly timed release of water from dams and has been moving southward toward the capital, inundating cities like Ayutthaya, that remain under several feet of water. As the flood approached Bangkok, the government seemed overwhelmed by the scale and uncertainty of the threat. A series of contradictory official statements in the past two weeks has coalesced into predictions of high water that could disrupt city life for weeks. “This is the first time I am using the term ‘evacuation,’ the first time I’m really asking you to leave,” said Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra of Bangkok on Wednesday. His words focused on several areas at highest risk, but he said people throughout the city should prepare for the worst. […] City residents have grown more apprehensive as flood defenses gave way one after another to the power of the water. […] In an assessment Wednesday, the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs said, “The capital is at high risk of being further flooded this weekend when the 1.2 billion cubic meters of northern runoff, about the volume of 480,000 Olympic pools, is expected to arrive in Bangkok at the same time as the predicted arrival of high tides.” Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has warned of a worst-case scenario in which water could rise in some areas to as high as five feet and remain for a month or more. […] She said three crucial flood barriers are holding back the worst of the deluge into the city. “If we can’t protect all three spots, all of Bangkok will be flooded,” she said.
Thousands Leave Bangkok as Flooding Spreads
Excellent article, disaster induced displacement is complicated problem
So-called environmentally induced migration is multi-level problem. According to Essam El-Hinnawi definition form 1985 environmental refugees as those people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural or triggered by people) that jeopardised their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life. The fundamental distinction between `environmental migrants` and `environmental refugees` is a standpoint of contemporsry studies in EDPs.
According to Bogumil Terminski it seems reasonable to distinguish the general category of environmental migrants from the more specific (subordinate to it) category of environmental refugees.
Environmental migrants, therefore, are persons making a short-lived, cyclical, or longerterm change of residence, of a voluntary or forced character, due to specific environmental factors. Environmental refugees form a specific type of environmental migrant.
Environmental refugees, therefore, are persons compelled to spontaneous, short-lived, cyclical, or longer-term changes of residence due to sudden or gradually worsening changes in environmental factors important to their living, which may be of either a short-term or an irreversible character.