Bangkok's cabinet approves a 160 billion baht canal plan as the flood toll hits 31

Thailand's cabinet has approved a 160 billion baht plan to move floodwater away from Bangkok, including a new canal from Chai Nat province, as the interior ministry put the death toll since 16 September at 31. The toll, given on Monday, is up from 23 last Tuesday. Four of the deaths were in the capital. Nearly 3.5 million people remained affected across eight provinces and Bangkok.

The disaster agency's own count, taken at 6 a.m. on 4 October, was more precise and slightly lower. Director-general Nirat Pongsitthithaworn said 1,171,165 households, or 3,262,676 people, were affected in 154 districts, 1,209 subdistricts and 8,790 villages across 27 provinces and the capital. Bangkok accounted for 329,000 households and four deaths. Water in the city was starting to fall. The Chao Phraya was still being watched because releases from upstream dams had not finished passing through.

Bangkok received about 320 millimetres of rain in three days, close to a usual September total, and the Independent described the inundation as the worst in 15 years. Roughly a tenth of the city was affected, mostly in the east and north-east. Drains and canals filled. Governor Chadchart Sittipunt apologised for delayed warnings and a slow start to relief. The meteorological department warned of thunderstorms, strong winds and heavy rain across much of upper Thailand from Monday to Wednesday, with a further risk of flash floods in low ground.

What 160 billion baht is supposed to do

The cabinet figure is about 3.5 billion pounds at the rate used in British reporting of the decision. The centrepiece is a canal from Chai Nat to take pressure off the Chao Phraya, which carries northern and central runoff through the capital. A canal of that kind does not empty a street this week. It is a diversion for the next monsoon, if it is built on the alignment and the timetable the cabinet has approved. The political fact is that the approval came while 31 people were already dead and 3.26 million were already counted as affected. The engineering fact is that the water now in Bangkok will leave by pump, gate and tide, not by a canal that has not been dug.

Chadchart's apology is about the warning, not the canal. A city that takes 320 millimetres in three days needs a forecast translated into gate settings and pump shifts before the water is in the lane. He said that translation was late. The disaster agency's 4 October snapshot, with water beginning to fall and the river still under watch, is the window in which a late warning does the most harm: the rain has arrived, the upstream pulse has not, and the next three days are forecast wet again.

The toll's path is the other number worth keeping. Eight deaths and about 226,000 households on 27 September became 24 deaths and more than a million households by 30 September, then 31 deaths by Monday. That is a count still moving, not a closed disaster. Bodies and missing persons in provincial districts are reported through the interior ministry. The capital's four deaths sit inside a separate municipal system. Adding them is how the ministry reached 31. A later revision will come if provincial lists add names the Monday brief did not have.

For residents the immediate instrument is still the pump and the sandbag. The 160 billion baht canal is the instrument the cabinet has chosen for the river that will bring the next crest. Between those two, the forecast from Monday to Wednesday is the period in which the apology will be tested. If the gates move before the next band of rain, the warning failure of the last three days stays a failure of the last three days. If they do not, the 31 will not be the last figure the ministry reads out.