Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Bangkok Underwater!!!
DaltheJigsaw
Mountain View Veteran
Heavy monsoon rains have been drenching Southeast Asia since mid-July, causing mudslides and widespread flooding. The deluge has now reached Bangkok, with rising water and associated problems affecting most of the city's 10 million residents. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said that parts of the capital could be inundated by up to 1.5 meters of water and remain flooded for up to a month. Around Bangkok, the second-largest airport has closed, food prices are soaring, clean water is becoming scarce, and the country is declaring a holiday from Thursday until Monday to allow people to evacuate. The Chao Phraya river is predicted to overflow its banks in the city sometime today, and authorities say that if the protective dikes fail to hold the water, all parts of Bangkok will be vulnerable to the floodwater.
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/10/bangkok-underwater/100178/
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/10/bangkok-underwater/100178/
0
Comments
Today and yesterday, the government was deciding whether or not to open the flood gates fully and to cut 4 major roads in the inner zone open to speed up teh flooding. They have handled the situation in such a bad way and it was on the cards for at least 6-8 weeks with the monsoon rains being so bad, and the fact the cool season hasn't been so 'cool', causing more moisture to be pushed in from the sea.
Yinluck is a novice, she has 'cried' multiple times whilst giving speeches and it is just major folly. This could have been dealt with in a much better fashion, and only now is it getting into the news properly.
*smile*
Flood comes from greed. If we could learn with it, it would be great, but I don't think we will do.
However, you would by quick to jump on Thais back being from Cambodia :P lol. But anyway you have a point about deforestation as that was a key factor in these floods. I thought that people in the UK and west were so revolved around money, but here in Thailand it is a totally different level.
Its a good sign to show how we can help. Step away from our desire from pleasure and share the safed money what other might need.
We would calm down the whole world with such an act. *smile* No more pushing the wheel has its effects.
Thai and Cambodian business man (soldiers) mostly cooperate very well if its up to cut some forest together. They are even so clever and make this area uncontrollable by the civil laws by declaring it as a national conflict.
Its all about greed. *smile* and there is no better greed, all of this causes flood.
http://www.harrowschool.ac.th/firstpage/read_more.php?ID_news=32
Who is to 'blame'? Oh my dears, it is too early and there is too much to do to waste energy on it just now. And those of us with loved ones so far away do them what little good we can by composing ourselves in courage and cheerfulness. The time will come, after the homeless have been rehoused, the bereaved comforted and the dead buried, when such questions may occupy us. If we have spent this time of waiting (over here) and struggling (over there) with a peace-filled mind, we shall be in a good state to learn whatever lessons may have to be learned for the future.
In any event, unless you want to take an ego-centred, punitive and mechanistic view of karma, have we not learned yet, after the tsunamis and Katerina, etc., that disasters cannot be avoided or, sometimes, even mitigated. Look at what Pascal says: we are reeds, even if thinking reeds, and the universe can crush us.
To all in peril or distress, may we each dedicate at least some part of the benefit of our daily practice?
I have been following the email alerts I get daily from a thaivisa forum for maybe 5 weeks now, sometimes you get 2-3 a day and people comment on the alerts obviously, mostly expats in bangkok on this topic. But the first comment of each thread is a news headline with the story.
It is a similar situation the US had with the decision on what to do about the debt, you guys could not decide because nobody was willing to back down due to their ego, no party was willing to get their heads down and sort everything out properly, together. Here it is the same, apart from it is not a matter of just economy, it is people's emediate lives and homes that are at stake.
This disaster was on the cards from going on 8 weeks ago. the Pm would have had information on it since then along with her cabinet, but they screwed it right up. Only in the last couple of days have they made some decent progress.
Of course it is easy to blame and sit here and do nothing to help what so ever, but I intend to go and help when the waters have subsided. Further more, I think people have every right to complain when you know the hardcore facts and you see exactly what is going on first hand. My GF has a son who was meant to be evacuating here ot Hua Hin 2 hours south, yet we have not heard from him in 3 days.
So yea, I think there is no harm in playing the blame game here IMHO! The government denied there being a crisis or distater for weeks, they kept so much from the public to try and keep their image clean and not to cause panick, yet they just delayed everything untill it was too late. The government is the single biggest ego, one that constantly will cause suffering due to greed and ignorance.