Thailand’s Department of Public Disaster Prevention and Mitigation has notified the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to advise the city’s riverside residents to brace a rise in the level of the Chao Phraya River from this Saturday until October 30th.
In an urgent letter, sent to Bangkok Governor Aswin Kwanmuang yesterday (Monday), the department’s director-general, Boontham Lertsukheekasem, said the department, in coordination with the Meteorological Department and the Hydro and Agro Informatics Institute, forecast that the rate of water from the Ping River, one of the four tributaries of the Chao Phraya, expected to flow through Muang district of Nakhon Sawan province will increase from 2,484 cm/second to between 3,000-3,100 cm/second from this Friday.
To manage the runoff from the Ping River, an amount of the water will be diverted into retention areas, via a network of irrigation canals, but most of it will be discharged through the Chao Phraya Dam in Sapphaya district of Chainat, at an average of 2,700 cm/second.
This will raise the level of the downstream section of the Chao Phraya River by between 0.20 and 0.40 metres and may affect areas not protected by flood walls, said the department.
