Wednesday, October 05, 2011
About 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of paddy fields in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos have been damaged or are at risk from the worst floods to hit the region in years, officials say.
In Thailand, the world's biggest rice exporter, where 237 people have died in the floods, about one million hectares of paddy -- roughly 10 percent of the total -- have been damaged, they say.
Heavy rains in Laos and Cambodia have also led to big losses in recent weeks, and experts say flood waters have now drained into Vietnam's Mekong Delta, a key global rice producer, making it the latest to be inundated.
Further west, flooding of rice and other farmland in Pakistan's arable belt has cost that country nearly $2 billion in losses.
"The whole region will now suffer from rising food prices as potential harvests have now been devastated. The damage is very serious this year and it will be some time before people can resume normal lives," Margareta Wahlstrom, the United Nations chief of disaster reduction, said in a statement.
The flood damage comes on top of worries about the impact on global rice prices of a new scheme by the Thai government to boost the minimum price farmers receive for their crop.
Vietnam meanwhile is the world's number-two rice exporter and the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam accounts for half the country's production.
"The upstream waters have begun to drop slightly but here they are rising three to five centimetres (1.2 to two inches) daily," said Duong Nghia Quoc, director of the agriculture department in Dong Thap province.
Dong Thap and neighbouring An Giang, which abut Cambodia, have been the worst affected in the delta.
The UN, citing government sources, says 11 people have died, more than 20,000 homes are flooded and 99,000 hectares of rice are at risk in Vietnam.
"Agricultural production is seriously affected this year by the floods that were, in fact, worse than our forecasts," said Vuong Huu Tien, of the flood and storm control department in An Giang, where thousands of soldiers have been mobilised to reinforce dykes and help residents reach safer ground.
In Cambodia, more than 330,000 hectares of rice paddy have been inundated, of which more than 100,000 hectares are completely destroyed, said a senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture.
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Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Most deaths occurred in metropolitan Manila, which already was soaked by heavy monsoon rains ahead of Typhoon Nesat’s arrival with more downpours and wind gusts of up to 93 miles per hour. Downtown areas along Manila Bay suffered their worst flooding in decades.
Pounding rains obscured the view of anyone on the streets as soldiers and police scrambled to evacuate thousands of people in low-lying areas, where rivers and the sea spilled into shanties, hospitals, swanky hotels, and even the seaside US Embassy compound.
“It’s flooded everywhere. We don’t have a place to go for shelter. Even my motorcycle got filled with water,’’ said Ray Gonzales, one of thousands stranded by fast-rising flood waters.
The massive flooding came exactly a day after this sprawling, coastal city of 12 million held two-year commemorations for the nearly 500 people killed during a 2009 cyclone, which dumped a month’s rainfall in just 12 hours. The archipelago receives about 20 storms and typhoons from the Pacific each year.
Some residents acted more quickly this time to evacuate homes as waters rose, including in the Manila suburb of Marikina, where 2,000 people escaped the swelling river by flocking to an elementary school, carrying pets, TV sets, bags of clothes, and bottled water.
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Thursday, September 22, 2011
Farmers in the neighbouring province of Pathum Thani are calling on authorities to open at least one watergate in the capital so water levels in an overflowing canal can be eased.
"The Hok Wa canal has risen one metre above its banks," Suchat Janchang complained yesterday.
Suchat, who is a farmer in Pathum Thani's Lam Luk Ka district, said more than 1,000 rai of his paddy fields would be in jeopardy if a watergate was not opened soon to let out some of the water. "Have some sympathy for us. We are going to incur huge losses," the 46-year-old said.
Lam Luk Ka district chief Panuwat Jenprasert said if Bangkok authorities continued blocking flood waters, then more than 18,000 rai of the local farmland would be submerged sustaining huge damages.
"Some of them have been flooded for nearly a month now," he said.
After a meeting with relevant authorities on preventing floods in Bangkok and adjacent provinces, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) had been well prepared to deal with the situation.
Also present at the meeting were Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra and the provincial governors of Pathum Thani, Nakhon Pathom, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon and Chachoengsao.
According to Yingluck, authorities are proceeding in line with His Majesty's advice on water management as they tackle the ongoing flood problems. "We will be pushing the water out of the capital via Lat Pho Canal. It's faster," she said.
With run-offs from the North, the Chao Phraya River has already overflowed in several provinces in the Central region.
In Chai Nat province, raging torrents in the Chao Phraya River knocked down a portion of an embankment and submerged Phaholyothin Road between the 290 and 293 kilometre markers, making that portion of the road impassable to traffic.
According to BMA Drainage and Sewerage Department chief Sanya Sheenimit, up to 3,800 cubic metres of water travelled down Chao Phraya River in Ayutthaya's Bang Sai district yesterday. Ayutthaya is just an hour's drive from Bangkok.
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Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The Mississippi River is flooding with increasing frequency. The mighty Mississippi River flows covers over 2,300 miles from Minnesota down into the Gulf of Mexico with 159 cities situated along its banks. The increased flooding along the Mississippi is due to climate change. This latest flooding of the Mississippi River, brought about by record April rainfall in the Ohio River Valley and very high levels in other states, killing at least 18 people, flooding millions of acres of farmland. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened the Morganza Spillway in an effort to prevent flood waters from effecting larger cities like New Orleans and Baton Rouge by intentionally flooding surrounding areas. It is the first time the spillway has been opened in 40 years.
The fact is we had a tremendous amount of snow over the winter and all that started melting about the same time all this rain started falling a few weeks ago. To be plagued with too much rain will destroy property and lives. It swells the rivers and creeks. Large bodies of water at the ocean shores lines will be made to swell with unusually high waves, dumping billions of tons of water over the now seashore line.
Rain weakens and destroys railroads, truck line beds and bridges. Rain undermines foundations of all types of buildings. Rain makes the atmosphere too heavy with moisture causing sickness. Wind with rain can bring destruction to towns and cities, bringing various germs, causing sickness to the people. It produces unclean water by the swelling of streams and destroying reservoirs of pure drinking water used for the health of the people. Rain is a destructive army within itself. Hail stones are also a property and life destroyer. The weather calamities would increase, taking both a physical and economic toll on a country. Millions of acres of land andcity infrastructure have been destroyed or damaged.
