The 7.7-magnitude Myanmar earthquake that rippled through Thailand has thrust Deputy Bangkok Governor Tavida Kamolvej into the spotlight as rescue workers search for victims buried by the collapse of a high-rise under construction.
Tavida first made headlines by demanding silence as Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and her entourage arrived to inspect the disaster site in Bangkok.
Paetongtarn’s visit had attracted a large crowd of local and international reporters, but the PM left soon after Tavida called for silence to aid rescue efforts.
Be quiet!
“Every second counts right now. We need silence to detect even the faintest signs of life. Noise makes it difficult to pinpoint any signs, delaying rescue efforts,” Tavida told reporters on Monday.
She also instructed them, in both Thai and English, to remain in the designated press area to avoid disrupting the rescue work.
“If we get a sign [of life], we need to have silence. Each one of us has to concentrate on the people under the rubble … I will keep you informed of any progress that happens,” the deputy governor said in English.
The 30-storey construction, due to become the new headquarters of Thailand’s State Audit Office, dramatically collapsed in the tremors, trapping nearly 100 construction workers under the rubble.
As of Thursday (April 3), 15 bodies and nine survivors had been retrieved from the rubble, with 72 people still missing, according to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA).
Six days after the disaster, hope is fading for the scores of victims still trapped beneath tons of broken concrete and twisted metal.
‘Disaster Lady’
Assoc Prof Tavida, 52, oversees public health and disaster prevention in the executive team led by Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt.
Though her academic field is political science, she is widely recognised as a disaster management expert – even earning the nickname “Lady Disaster” in the sphere of disaster risk reduction (DRR).
Tavida said her interest in the subject was sparked by the 2004 tsunami, which killed thousands in the South of Thailand.
“Some of my family members lived in the area at the time, and though none were among the victims, it was a decisive moment for me. The issue of DRR began to occupy my mind,” she told PreventionWeb, a knowledge-sharing platform of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).
While studying for her doctorate in the US, her professor proposed DRR as the topic for her thesis.
PreventionWeb featured Tavida as a female leader in disaster risk reduction in an April 2024 article.
The piece commended her on two decades as a disaster specialist and credited her with developing Thailand’s first disaster prevention course. She noted in
the article that her research findings had been translated into national policy and law.
“In my current political role, I can really make things happen. As a professor, you might only be able to formulate recommendations. Now, I get to implement them,” she said.
When asked about her plans after her BMA tenure ends, Tavida said, “When I go back to my university in two years, I will continue doing executable work with the government and other stakeholders.”
Background in academia
Tavida earned a bachelor’s in political science from Thammasat University in 1994 and a master’s in public administration from the same institution two years later.
She earned a second master’s degree, in public management, from the School of Social Sciences at the University of Florida in the US. In 2005, she completed a doctorate in public administration and policy at the University of Pittsburgh.
Tavida launched into academia as a lecturer in public administration at her alma mater in Bangkok, where she worked until 2022, serving as dean of Thammasat’s Faculty of Political Science from 2018 to 2022.
She left to join the BMA’s executive team when Chadchart assumed office in May 2022 after a landslide election victory.
Before joining City Hall, Tavida served as an expert on the National Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Committee.
Tavida is the second person in the Kamolvej family to work for the city authority. Her father, Thaweesak, is the former director of Phya Thai district in central Bangkok.
