Floods: Residents of Si Maha Phot must suffer to spare others
That must be a comforting thought for the residents of Si Maha Phot, where the water is 1 meter high - but not really. They will be freed from the water misery within a month, says deputy governor Weerawut Putrasreni of Prachin Buri province.
Weerawut also confirms what the residents had already determined: they have to bleed, so that rice fields in other districts are spared. The governor himself had said this before: crops are grown in the district, which have a lower yield than the crops in other districts, so the economic losses due to the floods are limited.
Pomelo grower Sayan Subpang (35), who saw his orchard flooded, has little understanding. If the floods don't stop, he could write off his orchard. He knows: my orchard has been flooded to save rice paddies in lower areas. This shows, he says, that the natural law has intervened that water flows from high to low and that the floods man-made .
Sayan finds that the authorities fair should be when faced with flooding. Every location is equally important, whether it is a rice field or an orchard. It is a bad idea to protect one area and allow others to suffer from severe flooding.
Si Maha Phot is one of five districts in the eastern province suffering from the worst flooding in 20 years. The misery started on Friday and now 20.000 houses and 42.000 rai of farmland are under water. That would be entirely due to closing a few weirs and diverting the water flow.
The deputy governor has now promised that the weirs will be opened to discharge the water from the area. The province also has thirty water pushing machines installed that increase the flow rate, causing the water to flow faster into the river.
Village head Somboon Parcharaphaiboon thinks that is not enough. The government should designate water storage areas that fill up during the rainy season. And the government would ban rice growing in it off-season so that the rice fields can be used for that purpose.
State Secretary Sorawong Thienthong (Public Health) visited the affected residents yesterday and distributed aid packages and medicines. The head of the Health Department warns of diarrhoea, eye irritations and leptospirosis. According to him, many victims of the floods suffer from stress.
(Source: bangkok mail, September 28, 2013)