Chiang Mai needs to be ready for evacuation

3 Oct 2011

City officials have warned that evacuation may be necessary in parts of flood hit Chiang Mai. The Disaster Prevention Bureau says people in districts close to swollen rivers and where mudslides are a possibility should be prepared to head for safety at a moment’s notice.

The northern bureau’s boss Komsan Suwanampha said that if floods or mudslides were coming, residents should try to reach higher ground or congregate at schools and temples. Heavy rains over the past weeks have loosened soil and posed the threat of landslides, especially in San Patong and San Kamphaeng.

The two districts are close to mountains which have become saturated with the rainfall and are not able to absorb any more water. Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has endorsed a budget that will allow Chiang Mai authorities to purchase 500,000 sandbags for temporary flood walls on swollen waterways.

The National Disaster Warning Office says that landslides, flooding and flash-floods in the northern provinces of Thailand have caused numerous deaths over recent weeks and, that in Chiang Mai itself, 10,000 families had had their lives disrupted in some way.

Although tropical depression Nesat has been downgraded, rain is still falling and the National Meteorological Department says that, as well as Chiang Mai, other regions at risk of flash-floods are Mae Hong Son, Chiang Rai, Phrae, Phayao and Tak.

In Lampang, just south of Chiang Mai, the top of the ancient stupa, Phra That Muen Kruen, has collapsed while floodwaters in some parts of the province are almost two metres in depth.

Tags: Chiang Mai ready evacuation