Living with adversity: A woman boils water in her flooded home in Bangkok Noi district’s Santichon Songkroh community. Santichon Songkroh is on the banks of the Chao Phraya River and floods every year. Residents have resisted efforts by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to build a flood wall. THITIWANNAMONTHA
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said yesterday he wanted financial assistance to reach flood victims as soon as possible.
The government would bypass financial regulations to speed up assistance. It also has set up a relief centre at Government House.
The prime minister yesterday afternoon visited flooded areas and handed out necessities to flood victims in Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani.
The death toll has reached 38 in flooding in the lower Northeast and Central regions, and the high waters are now moving towards Bangkok.
The new spending arrangements allow provincial authorities to seek flood relief funding direct from the Comptroller-General's Department rather than go through normal channels.
Mr Abhisit said an easing of the spending regulations might raise concerns about transparency but his government would try to prevent corruption.
The prime minister has also formed a committee to oversee assistance for flood victims and a centre to coordinate help and rehabilitation.
The cabinet will lift the ceiling on financial assistance for flooded areas, he said.
PM's Office Minister Sathit Wongnongtoey heads the committee which also includes the permanent secretaries of the PM's Office and the Defence Ministry, the supreme commander, the army chief and the national police chief.
It includes the directors-general of the departments of disaster prevention and mitigation, irrigation, provincial administration, meteorology, water resources and public relations, and the presidents of the Federation of Thai Industries, the Thai Chamber of Commerce and the Thai Bankers' Association.
The relief centre is based at the Santi Maitri Building at Government House and its head is Apirak Kosayodhin, an adviser to the prime minister.
The help centre is made up of representatives from 17 government offices. It will arrange teams and supplies to help flood victims, receive complaints, gather information about the flood situation and prevent corruption in flood relief arrangements.
People can contact the help centre on 1111 or via SMS at number 456-7891 free, around the clock.
Mr Abhisit said the focus of assistance might vary in different areas. Assistance for people in deeply flooded areas would focus on people's living conditions while help for areas where floods were subsiding would deal mainly with health care and rehabilitation.
The floods in the Northeast should start to recede soon, he said.
Mr Abhisit denied claims that relief had been slow to reach flood victims. Rescue workers were working hard to help victims and his government was working well with government agencies on the relief effort.
Mr Abhisit said he was concerned about the impact of high tides combining with run off from the North travelling down the Chao Phraya River to Bangkok.
Capt Chakkrit Malikhao of the navy's Hydrographic Department said river water flowed through Ayutthaya's Bang Sai district at a rate of 3,500 cubic metres a second yesterday. If the rate increased to 4,000 cubic metres a second, the level of the Chao Phraya River would rise by 10% to 12% to slightly over two metres.
The level of the river at the navy headquarters building in Bangkok peaked at 1.90 metres yesterday morning.
The Irrigation Department said water was still flowing from the North.
Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra hoped flood walls along the Chao Phraya River could hold back the water as the peak level of the river was expected to reach 2.3 metres while Bangkok's flood walls were only 2.5 metres high.
He asked people living outside flood walls not to remove sandbags that form part of the flood walls because that would cause problems to people elsewhere in the city.
Fonte - Bangkok Post - 25 de Outubro
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