Thai capital to be drained of water within 11 days

Thailand's capital city of Bangkok could be drained of water within 11 days, Bangkok Post daily newspaper quoted the country's Irrigation Department as saying on Thursday. This is very good news to an anxious city for the first time since northern floodwaters entered the capital. Nearly half of the northern runoff which has devastated farmland and industrial estates and flooded parts of the capital has now flowed into the sea and the rest will be drained out soon, the department said on Wednesday. The country's worst floods, caused by heavy monsoon and overflow from several dams in upper part of the country, in nearly 60 years have claimed more than 500 lives and affected about 10 million people since mid July. This year's northern runoff has been estimated at 14 billion cubic meters. Nearly half of that amount has flowed into the sea, leaving 8.5 billion cubic meters in the Central Plains, said Irrigation Department spokesman Boonsanong Suchatpong. He said that of the 8.5 billion cubic meters of water, about 3 billion cubic meters is in the Chao Phraya River and 3.5 billion cubic meters in the fields in the central provinces and north of Bangkok. With about 400 million cubic meters of water being drained into the sea every day, the floodwater could be drained out of the capital in 11 days, he said. A total of 32 of 50 districts, mostly in the north, west and east, of Bangkok have been announced by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration as disaster area.