EPTThis is a terrible on-going event ever since the past few months; it has some coverage on major news sites, but however receives little attention. This flood started from the alarmingly high precipitation in the late monsoon season, particularly in September, but then soon turned into a magnitude that surpasses anything Thailand has seen in 50 years.
![[image loading]](http://www.thairath.co.th/media/feed/9/2011/1319184968.37/400.jpg)
One-third of the country is fully submerged under the overwhelming 100 billion cubic meters of water, and would still be underwater at the very least throughout November. Almost 400 people have died since mid-July, and numbers are tallying up. This flood affects more than 9 million people, including hundreds of thousands of now-homeless who desperately needs more clean food&water.
![[image loading]](http://www.thairath.co.th/media/feed/9/2011/1319622322.04/400.jpg)
One of the many refugees camp
To top that off, the flood swept across engulfed what was once a bustling industrial and agricultural zones. Companies such as Western Digital, Toyota, etc. has already suffered significant losses and announced that they're halting all productions in the area. Some areas have water as high as 4-5m, leaving the all the factories, homes, and rice fields alike completely helpless. Damage currently estimated by the Chamber of Commerce is now more than 5 Billion Dollars.
![[image loading]](http://www.thairath.co.th/media/feed/9/2011/1319801043.03/400.jpg)
Better find a new job soon.
Most people will take a long time to recover from this flood, and a portion will be jobless as well. People who knows the inevitable is coming began stocking up, and the prices for day-to-day groceries skyrocketed through the roof.
![[image loading]](http://www.thairath.co.th/media/feed/9/2011/1319467263.78/400.jpg)
Driven from their homes
With the flood, comes other dangers such as crocodiles that escaped from farms, and all the diseases. Most wildlife doesn't fare better than the people either, some were rescued and moved to higher grounds, but moving animals from their natural habitat is not an easy task.
![[image loading]](http://www.thairath.co.th/media/feed/9/2011/1319426691.45/400.jpg)
Nowhere to go
The major concern for the moment is the country's capital, which stands between all the water and the sea. Barriers were set-up to prevent water from entering the capital in order in minimize damages, but it's not holding well and water started pouring into certain districts. Riverbanks are brimmed, and will easily go into overflow mode. Some people with relatives in other parts of the country are now fleeing the city.
![[image loading]](http://www.thairath.co.th/media/feed/9/2011/1319532005.09/400.jpg)
Bangkok: the Venice of the East - soon to be promoted to the Atlantis of the East.
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The, erm...runway of the city's second airport.
No matter what to you do, the vast amount of water is going to take horrendously long to get rid off. Nevertheless, the person who knows best about this, is interestingly, someone who have combated floods after floods for the last few decade: the King of Thailand. Unfortunately, he is too old and sick to advise much, but the key solution that he used more than 15 years ago in another massive flood, was to use water gates to maximize the flow rate of water. A really well-timed opening and closing of the gates to rhyme with the lunar tides can do wonders. This technique worked really well in the past, but requires a lot of calculation to capitalize the tides and modeling the best paths for the water for this to work.The government, however, seems to be quite behind on implementing it.
![[image loading]](http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56312000/jpg/_56312381_girl.jpg)
Images: thairath.co.th, bbc.co.uk
Edit: Since some people were asking if there's a solution: there's one proposed by the King. He, and his team did this 15 years ago and it worked really well. The idea is to divert water to a certain path and let them build up behind the gates during high tides, and release them during low tides. Once the tides come back up close the gates and keep doing it. Follow the river path to use all the gates available. It's quite complex to decide where to barrier up and which gates to close at which time though, since tides come and go progressively, not in an instant. This is possibly the most efficient way to do things as a plus, you don't need to spend the much of the needed money for the feeding of all the people, and repairs afterwards.
