Thousands of nervous Bangkok residents flocked to bus, rail and air terminals Thursday while heavy traffic snaked out of the sprawling Thai capital in an exodus from a mass of approaching floodwater. Water was seeping into central areas of the city of 12 million people, entering the grounds of the Grand Palace after the Chao Phraya river overflowed at high tide, but most of downtown Bangkok was still dry. Many residents hunkered down in their homes, surrounded by sandbags or in some cases even hastily erected concrete block walls, after the govt ordered a five-day holiday for 21 provinces including Bangkok from Thursday.
“It’s a crisis, because if we try to resist this massive amount of floodwater, a force of nature, we won’t win,” said a teary-eyed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, facing a major test of her two-month-old leadership. Government offices, schools and some businesses were shut across Bangkok, where supermarkets have been running low on – and sometimes rationing – essential items such as bottled water and eggs as residents stock up. A huge runoff from the north equivalent to 480,000 Olympic swimming pools is expected to reach the capital at the same time as seasonal high tides this weekend, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
