Tuesday, October 25, 2011

BKK Flood Update 1.0

Bangkok is bracing itself for the worst as floodwater is expected to continue flowing into the city (Source: CnnGo’s article)

Central Bangkok is still business as usual with no impending signs of the economic center being besieged by water soon. But given some of the updates we have had in the recent days, I am honestly clueless as to what really is going to happen.

You see, there has been some conflict ing information where one party said nothing will happen to Bangkok, and the other party saying that Bangkok will not be spared. So, until we see the actual gushing of water filling up the sois right in front of our eyes, all we can do here is sit around, twiddle our thumbs, go about our everyday lives and continue speculating of when it will happen.

We now know for sure that some of the areas in Bangkok are already flooded. With it, comes the reality that food and water supplies are in high demand. Already as we know it now, there has been a shortage of bottled water as most of the major water production plants had stopped production a week ago as factories had all gone under. (I actually had this information first hand from a colleague within hours after one of the key players here announced that they told their employees to go home as their manufacturing plants will be closed indefinitely)

The shelves at the supermarkets particularly those which used to shelf canned food and bottled water have all been wiped out. I saw quite a sad sight when I did a walkthrough of the Villa Market in my office building after lunch – a proof that this was not just another rumour. (But don't worry, other junk food are still available!)


As of this morning, I received an SMS update indicating that Tesco-Lotus will be closing stores nationwide as suppliers were all unable to make the deliver. In short - they have nothing to sell!

A few of my colleagues also mentioned that the few 7-Elevens in the streets of Soi 4 do not have any more stocks of bottled water. Bangkok residents have also been advised by the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority today to start stockpiling tapwater (?) as the tapwater situation will be “worse than expected” …

If all this is true, then the next few weeks will look grim. It is a scary thought that there’ll be no more water available for consumption. Soon.

Silver Bullet shared some pictures from his office with me…and holy shit! The image looked surreal and unbelievably scary!

 Entrance towards his main office building - check out the water level on the other side! 


View from on the side of the parking lot
 As I looked out of the window this hot aftrenoon, it is hard to believe that the skies have been nothing but bright blue with a temperature up to 37 °C in the day, while some parts of Bangkok have been filled with murky water of about 1m high and people have been using boats as their mode of transport.

It was pourign rain when I got home though, and I don’t know what these few days will bring.From what I was told, the next few days will be very critical, as the government has declared Friday and Monday a public holiday.

I’ll have my ears on the grounds for furrther updates as they come along.

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