Floods Threaten Thai Capital, Scores Killed in Myanmar

Thailand battled to protect the capital Bangkok from being swamped by water on Friday, with canals full to the brim after devastating floods across the region that sources in neighbouring Myanmar said had killed at least 100 people there.

After trying to hold the line for a week, the Thai government opened some canals on Thursday to allow water to run through the inner city, carrying the risk of inundating some districts but relieving pressure on dikes.

At least 100 bodies had been found in the low-lying parts of central Myanmar along the Irrawaddy River, with at least 100 more missing after floods and torrential rains since Wednesday, according to a reliable source in Pakokku, about 450 km (280 miles) north of the biggest city, Yangon.

The source requested anonymity and cited information provided by a local administration official. Residents contacted by Reuters in Monywa and Kyaukse towns said there was damage to property and crops, but could not confirm casualties.

Government officials in the secretive country were not available for comment and state-controlled media made no mention of the rains and floods.

The floods have also killed at least 247 in Cambodia and displaced tens of thousands of people.

The floods are the worst in Thailand in five decades and have killed at least 342 people since July and devastated industrialised areas to the north of Bangkok.

The crisis is the first real test for politically inexperienced Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose government has had to form uneasy alliances with the military and political rivals to coordinate the relief effort.

Bangkok’s metropolitan authority is controlled by the opposition Democrat Party, while the military has a frosty relationship with the ruling Puea Thai Party because of its de facto leader and Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, the self-exiled former premier overthrown by the army in 2006.

The flood problem was building even before she took office in early August and looks set to cost industry more than $3 billion, slashing economic growth this year.

The 44-year-old former businesswoman is resisting calls to declare a state of emergency, saying authorities are able to manage.

“It would ruin investors’ confidence, which is quite weak already,” Yingluck told reporters at the crisis centre.

“At this moment we can see that we (the government and the people) are cooperating very well to help us get through the problem. If I declare a state of emergency, I would be telling the world that we can’t help each other.”

Thousands of people in northern parts of Bangkok were moving valuables and electrical equipment to higher floors while evacuees pitched tents in the city’s Don Muang airport.

In the fringe provinces of Ayutthaya, Pathum Thani and Nonthaburi, residents packed into boats, some carrying the elderly on their shoulders. Elevated tollways had been turned into giant car parks, with moving traffic reduced to a single lane on some highways.

Many convenience stores in downtown Bangkok were sold out of water and instant noodles and appeals were made for supplies from medicine and food to diapers and slippers.

Some workers stayed home to fortify their houses and banks and shops in Bangkok’s business districts were piling up sandbags in case canals burst.

“If the floodwater reaches Bangkok… the damage would be immeasurable because of the disruption to people’s lives,” Bangkok Bank’s executive vice-president, Bhakorn Vanuptikul, told Reuters outside his bank’s fortified headquarters.

Water now covers a third of Thailand’s provinces, some four million acres (1.6 million hectares) in the north, northeast and centre of the country, and a seventh big industrial estate was overwhelmed late on Thursday when flood barriers at the Bang Kadi park in Pathum Thani were breached.

The government’s effort to steer the water around the east and west of the capital has had some success, the crisis centre said, but people in the northern Don Muang and Lak Si districts were told to be on the alert and ready to move.

Viphavadi-Rangsit, a main road from the north into the heart of the city, is the biggest concern, with fears that canals could overflow and swamp it, said Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra.

The start of the new term for 116 schools, scheduled for Nov. 1, would be delayed indefinitely, Sukhumbhand added.

The weather was expected to clear Friday and similar conditions forecast for on Saturday, but light rain was expected Sunday and thunderstorms in the days after, according to the Meteorological Department.

The central bank has put the damage to industry at more than 100 billion baht ($3.3 billion) on Thursday and said 2011 economic growth could be closer to 3 percent than the 4.1 percent it forecast. Finance Minister Thirachai Phuvanatnaranubala said growth might be barely 2 percent.

The Commerce Ministry said exports might fall 13 percent in the fourth quarter compared with 2010.

Thailand is a big regional hub for the world’s car makers and most are suffering disruption, either because their plants are flooded or, more often, because parts makers have had to close and the supply chain has been disrupted.

The output of Japanese car makers has fallen by about 6,000 units a day because of the flooding. Germany’s Daimler AG said late on Thursday it had halted car production because of the threat of flooding.

Thailand is the world’s top rice exporter. Traders and analysts said it was too early to assess the damage, but estimated about 2 million tonnes of milled rice may have been ruined, with delays to the loading of 100,000 tonnes of rice.

(Additional reporting by Aung Hla Tun in Yangon, Apornrath Phoonphongphiphat in Bangkok and; Angie Teo and Sinthana Kosolpradit in Nonthaburi; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Nick Macfie)