Bangkok Floods Still Taking Lives

The Thailand Government has had warnings out to evacuate for the flooding. Currently there are 11 districts that have been ordered to evacuate and 7 others for partial evacuation. Evacuations are not mandatory in the districts, and many people are not evacuating because they want to protect their homes and businesses. Thailand has been hammered with heavy rainfall since late July leaving the country in a swampy mess and death tolls around 500. Majority of the people have drown or died from water electrocutions.

Bangkok does have a drainage system to siphon off water during the monsoon season, but this system is efficient for the average rainfall, and the rainfall that Thailand is seeing is not average.

I found this article on news.google.com. I thought it was very interesting because it reminded me of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. Japan had tsunami walls up but the earthquake was so large, and made the ground sink about 3 feet into the ground, that the tsunami walls were no match. In this case, the drainage system is effective and efficient for average monsoon rainfalls, but are not up to the amounts of rain Thailand has gotten this year.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/evacuations-ordered-in-bangkok-after-floods-kill-more-than-500/article2227071/