SAMUT PRAKAN, Sept 12 (TNA) – Prapit Chanma, director-general of the Royal Irrigation Department, ordered the full-scale operation of nine coastal pump stations to drain floodwater from Bangkok and Samut Prakan province into the Gulf of Thailand.
Mr Prapit said that his department and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration were coordinating flood drainage and for the time being the department operated four pump stations around the clock to keep deluges in Bangkok’s waterways at controllable levels.
Seaside canals had been drained earlier to receive water from upper areas. The department activated nine pump stations connected to the coastal canals to accelerate the discharges of floodwater into the Gulf of Thailand. All the nine stations could pump 227 cubic meters of water per second or about 19 million cubic meters per day altogether, Mr Prapit said.
Meanwhile, sluicegates must be operated in accordance with the times of high and low tides. Sluicegates would be opened during low tides and officials would depend on pump stations during high tides, he said.
Mr Prapit also said that he deployed mobile pumps to increase the drainage capacity in addition to existing pump stations to help flood victims in Bangkok and Samut Prakan as soon as possible. (TNA)
