Just curious if anyone has any personal contacts in Bangkok? I'm surprised no one has mentioned Bangkok yet. It's sort of like NOLA, except involving more people, and the flooding is into the...15th week, I think.

Hygiene and sickness seems to be the biggest threats for the residents of the capital city, including an outbreak of leptospirosis, spread by rats. Food poisoning is also making many folks sick because they can't prepare foods in sanitary conditions. Fortunately, diseases like cholera or malaria haven't appeared yet.

I just started to look into it, you are right there seems to be less coverage for this event. It appears to 2nd news to the rest of the world.

I don't personally know anyone there but there's a guy that occasionally posts at another forum I frequent that's in Bangkok.

I read a statistic somewhere saying that for a natural disaster or man-made calamity to be reported in US media, a certain number of deaths has to be reached. That number is lower when the deaths are of Americans. When the victims are foreign nationals, the number has to be higher, and different countries get different numbers (e.g., 5 people in the US vs. 50 people in the UK vs. 500 in Sudan -- just making up some numbers for an example).

Not trying to get political here, but maybe this is why the coverage of Bangkok isn't so good here. Although a terrible situation, the flood is too far and not deadly enough for the news hounds. Just a guess.

DB

No contacts currently in Thailand.

I have been following the Thailand somewhat, mostly in regard to the economic impact as it has disrupted the supply chain for some major multi-national manufacturers.

Cannot imagine being caught up in such an extended crisis.


The flooding began in late July and has killed 529 people, mostly by drowning. The water has reached parts of Bangkok, where residents are frustrated by government confusion over how much worse the flooding will get.


http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/247079/20111110/thailand-flooding-map-bangkok-sinking.htm

Thailand Flooding Map Exposes Bigger Problem: Bangkok is Sinking

Thanks, Dagny. That was an interesting article. I didn't realize that Bangkok is facing the double-whammy of rising sea levels and is also sinking lower. No simple solutions to that, and any actions will be costly.

I first found out about it from a sign at Office Max, which said something like "Due to widespread flooding in Thailand, hard drives are in short supply. Limit one per customer."

I've followed the flooding closely in Thailand since late August, because I usually go there a couple times a year for work. I was scheduled to fly there twice last month, and both times my trip was cancelled about three hours before my flight.

The company I go to was completely flooded, so almost everything is a complete loss. Unfortunately I have not been able to contact any of the people I know over there, but I've heard through the grapevine that many of their homes were flooded also, and because of the severity of the situation most people probably will not be returning to work for some time. Just from the few pictures I've seen of places i recognize, I can imagine the kind of damage that's occured. In some areas the water was close to reaching the second floors.

In hindsight, the flooding in Bangkok shouldn't have been a surprise, the city of Ayutthaya (north of Bangkok) flooded about a week earlier and all that water comes down the Chao Praya river and was expected to hit Bangkok during high tide in the middle of October, exactly during the time I was supposed to arrive. Coupled with the weather forecast that was predicting two straight weeks of rain, it didn't surprise me at all when I saw how bad it got by the third week of October.