Floods in Bangkok - 14 Nov

The Floods In Bangkok – 14 Nov

There are about a million people out of work, 562 people have died and the floods are still here but some areas are recovering.
So inner Bangkok is OK but all the northern and western sides of the city are still swamped. The draining and clean up will be quite quick now and I am sure the government who are desperate from some good publicity will have lots of reports of clean up and improvement but the seven industrial estates that are flooded will take a long time to recover. Some examples in my own industry – pharmaceutical manufacture all my customers are flooded, I know that Silom Medical have just installed and commissioned a new Romilag machine (cost 1 million pounds) for continuous extrusion and filling and sealing of sterile liquids used in hospitals – we call them large volume parenterals, they are the poly bags of saline or dextrose used for recovery after operations. I had one immediately after coming round from my operation.
Well this machine is now flooded and will have to be completely dismantled and cleaned and the room cleaned and repainted and then sterilised and the HVAC equipment will all have to be refurbished. The machine will have to be re-commissioned and validated again, it will take months.
Another company GHP have the same problem, the water was 2 metres deep in the factory and all the machinery is affected. Again months of work before production can restart.
Other companies badly affected include water production and bottling (no bottled water anywhere), beer production, no bottled beer is available, the company which make the crown corks is badly affected.
Electronics, semiconductors, HDD disc drives (40% of world production), Auto motive parts and assembly (this is the biggest industrial sector here) for world wide use, Toyota, Nissan, Issuzu, Honda all have major issues with key parts world wide affecting production supply chains everywhere. Textiles is huge here and again badly affected. Shoes are made here for all SA Asia and EU. Rice production is affected so world wide price is going up (Thailand is the biggest producer and exporter)

Some pictures and video of the current situation

Some of the best pics are on this website:-
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/10/thailand-floods-pass-their-peak/100181/

Other Accounts give a balanced view of the issues here which are many, such as :-
Prime Minister Yingluck saying the worst is over
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/264064/pm-yingluck-it-won-t-get-any-worse

Rachel Harvey of the BBC with a balanced account of the situation
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15518634

Problems with a big bag wall preventing run off water from entering northern Bangkok by the old air port of Don Mueang. Residents want the wall down as it is flooding their district but the wall is protecting the air port. There is also a picture of the residents tearing down the wall this morning

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/Police-force-guarding-Don-Mueang-big-bag-wall-boos-30169851.html

Next is a very good video of the effects in a business area just north of the centre of Bangkok yesterday . this includes Soi Bang Bua, Paholyothin Road, Kaset Intersection, Lard Prakhao and Chokchai 4 Roads. People still have to go the work through the floods they have to use heavy lorries for shuttle transport in the badly flooded areas.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/specials/nationvdo/showvdo.php?id=5612&cateid=13

Here is an example of government and metropolitan district planning - All a bit too late, Today Water dispensing centres are set up for flood-hit victims
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Water-dispensing-centres-set-up-for-flood-hit-vict-30169858.html

A good account of the effect on the tourist industry and also nothing in the shops
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Phuket-tourism-fears-ripples-from-Bangkok-floods-30169850.html
Reuters have a good website here
http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/11/09/idINIndia-60405520111109 By Robert Birsel BANGKOK | Thu Nov 3, 2011 6:50am EDT
And Today this account of the months of work to come. Now 562 people have died mainly by electrocution
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/11/14/uk-thailand-flood-idUKTRE7AD0GT20111114

Forbes, November 8, 2011. This recognises all the work to come, but also one that indicates foreign misconceptions about factories here.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2011/11/08/are-the-thailand-floods-about-to-kill-computer-companies/
The assumption is that workers live in homes and communities near the factory and commute to work. The reality is that workers are largely recruited from other provinces who live in regimented dorms by the thousands near to their work place] and …Flooded plants means flooded manufacturing equipment. There is no guarantee that any of that equipment will even work when the water does recede. Even if, by some miracle it does work, or is easily replaced, will the workforce be there? It’s not like the company was on strike and the workers can simply come back. Cleaning up after a flood is difficult and time-consuming. Where will the employees live? Will they be able to return home? Will there be sanitation, or will there be polluted water everywhere? These are all factors these Thailand manufacturing plants are working out right now as they plan their rebound…

Some other things have happened during all the flooding

The Thai & Lao Friendship Bridge across the Mekong , this 1.7 billion baht bridge was declared open at the auspicious time of 11.11 am on Nov 11, 2011.
Loy Katong
The water festival which happens at the full moon this month, this water festival is to respect the water spirit and to say sorry for being bad to the water during the year, well this year the water came to the people.

Thailand Floods 2011

Thailand is currently facing its worst flooding in 50 years. Flood waters have swamped more than two-thirds of the country, submerging rice fields and shutting down hundreds of factories while over 900,000 businesses have been impacted and hundreds of lives have been tragically lost. National relief efforts are now focused on providing essential food, clean water and shelter to displaced people and restoring damaged infrastructure to the Kingdom of Smiles. This is a photo of a a traffic island in a flooded road with very apt hedge cuttings.

RBL Big Push: From Bangkok to Phuket by Bike

RBL Big Push: Click this link to see more photos taken by Anthony Margetts, between Oct 20 and 30, 2011.
I have just completed the Big Push bike ride from Bangkok to Phuket to raise money for the Royal British Legion Charity. Ten riders (9 Brits and 1 Thai)
Now recovering back in flooded Bangkok after the bike ride. We rode 800km in 8 days through some of Thailands best countryside.
You can see some photos at http://www.phuketgazette.net/archives/articles/2011/article11294.html and at http://rblbigpush.wordpress.com/author/rblbigpush/

Training Ride Around Bangkok

Cycling: Photos by Anthony Margetts, Jul 23, 2011
The team from Royal British Legion who will cycle from Bangkok to Phuket in October as a charity event

Thai Holiday August 2011

Thai Holiday August 2011: Photos by Anthony Margetts, Sep 4, 2011

Choosing the Healthy Option

I have been guilty of not uploading recently but I have been reading The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading by Peter Lunenfeld: see the following:-

The networked computer offers an antidote to the junk culture of broadcasting. Why not choose the healthy option?
THINK of those fleeting moments when you look out of an aeroplane window and realise that, regardless of the indignities of commercial air travel, you are flying, higher than a bird, an Icarus safe from the sun. Now think of your laptop, thinner than a manila envelope, or your cellphone nestled in the palm of your hand. Take a moment or two to wonder at those marvels. You are the lucky inheritor of a dream come true.
The second half of the 20th century saw a collection of geniuses, warriors, pacifists, cranks, entrepreneurs and visionaries labour to create a fabulous machine that could function as a typewriter and printing press, studio and theatre, paintbrush and gallery, piano and radio, the mail as well as the mail carrier. Not only did they develop such a device but by the turn of the millennium they had also managed to embed it in a worldwide system accessed by billions of people every day.
The networked computer is an amazing device, the first media machine that serves as the mode of production (you can make stuff), means of distribution (you can upload stuff to the network), site of reception (you can download stuff and interact with it), and locus of praise and critique (you can talk about the
stuff you have downloaded or uploaded). The computer is the 21st century's culture machine.
But for all the reasons there are to celebrate the computer, we must also tread with caution. This is because the networked computer has sparked a secret war between downloading and uploading - between passive consumption and active creation - whose outcome will shape our collective future in ways we can only begin to imagine. I call it a secret war for two reasons. First, most people do not realise that there are strong commercial agendas at work to keep them in passive consumption mode. Second, the majority of people who use networked computers to upload are not even aware of the significance of what they are doing.
All animals download, but only a few upload anything besides faeces and their own bodies. Beavers build dams, birds make nests and termites create mounds, yet for the most part, the animal kingdom moves through the world downloading. Humans are unique in their capacity to not only make tools but then turn around and use them to create superfluous material goods - paintings, sculpture and architecture - and superfluous experiences - music, literature, religion and philosophy. Of course, it is precisely these superfluous things that define human culture and ultimately what it is to be human. Downloading and consuming culture requires great skills, but failing to move beyond downloading is to strip oneself of a defining constituent of humanity.
For all the possibilities of our new culture machines, most people are still stuck in download mode. Even after the advent of widespread social media, a pyramid of production remains, with a small number of people uploading material, a slightly larger group commenting on or modifying that content, and a huge percentage remaining content to just consume. One reason for the persistence of this pyramid of production is that for the past half-century, much of the world's media culture has been defined by a single medium - television - and television is defined by downloading.
Television is a one-way spigot gushing into our homes. The hardest task that television asks of anyone is to turn the power off after they have turned it on. The networked computer offers the first chance in 50 years to reverse the flow, to encourage thoughtful downloading and, even more importantly, meaningful uploading.
What counts as meaningful uploading? My definition revolves around the concept of "stickiness" - creations and experiences to which others adhere. Tweets about celebrity gaffes are not sticky but rather little Teflon balls of meaninglessness. In contrast, applications like tumblr.com, which allow users to combine pictures, words and other media in creative ways and then share them, have the potential to add stickiness by amusing, entertaining and enlightening others - and engendering more of the same. The explosion of apps for mobile phones and tablets means that even people with limited programming skills can now create sticky things.
The challenge the computer mounts to television thus bears little similarity to one format being replaced by another in the manner of record players being replaced by CD players. It is far more profound than that, because it can bring about a radical break from the culture of television and a shift from a consumption model to a production model.
More uploading to follow soon

Songkran in Bangkok

Here in Thailand 13, 14, 15 April is the Thai New Year and it is celebrated by sprinkling water on Budda and those you love at the Temple, out in the street the sprinkling takes on a more war like meaning but it is all good fun but be prepared to get wet

Monks Bless the New House

I move to a new house, here in Thailand Monks have to bless a new house and here is the story of the day

The Fukushima Nuclear Plant Crisis

In all the publicity of the terrible earth quake and tsunami in Japan there is a huge amount of TV time devoted to the striken Fukushima Nuclear Plant. In China and Europe Governments are considering closing down existing nuclear plants until further studies show them to be safe.
Sadly many thousands have died in the Tsunami in Japan, but as yet no-one has died as a result of emissions from the Nuclear Plant.
Even though these reactors are 40 years old the safety engineering ( thick steel shield plus reinforced concrete shield) has done its job and has prevented major release of radiation into the surrounding area even with the biggest earthquake ever in Japan and the Tsunami that knocked out the standby generators. The effect here is much less than at Chernobyl in 1986.
The Chernobyl meltdown was hideous and traumatic. The plant there did not have the thick steel shield plus reinforced concrete shield. The official death toll so far appears to be 43 workers in the initial few months, then a further 15 civilians by 2005. Totally unacceptable, of course; but a tiny fraction of the deaths for which climate change is likely to be responsible, through its damage to the food supply, its contribution to the spread of infectious diseases and its degradation of the quality of life for many of the world's poorest people.
Coal is the primary driver of human-caused climate change. If its combustion is not curtailed, it could kill millions of times more people than nuclear power plants have done so far, see this:
Coal mining: Most deadly job in China
By Zhao Xiaohui & Jiang Xueli (Xinhua)
China produced 35 percent of the world's coal last year, but reported 80 percent of the total deaths in coal mine accidents, according to statistics with the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS). Coal mining has become the most deadly job in China. There is about one death every 7 days.

However people are very worried about radiation and this worry can feed on itself and the news people love this. Today a fake text message warning people that radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant has leaked beyond Japan has been panicking people across Asia including in here in Thailand. It is complete rubbish !!
FAKE E-MAIL (from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12745128).
BBC Flash news : Japan Government confirms radiation leak at Fukushima nuclear plants. Asian countries should take necessary precautions. If rain comes, remain indoors first 24, remain indoors first 24 hours. Close doors and windows. Swab neck skin with betadine where thyroid area is, radiation hits thyroid first. Take extra precautions. Radiation may hit Philippine at around 4 pm today. If it rains today or in the next few days in Hong Kong. Do not go under the rain. If you get caught out, use an umbrella or raincoat, even if it is only a drizzle. Radioactive particles, which may cause burns, alopecia or even cancer, may be in the rain.

Visit to Hospital

Visit to Hospital: "Photos by Anthony Margetts, Mar 1, 2011 - I bought a new knife and managed to cut my arm then a quick trip on a motor bike taxi to Bangkok hospital nearby"

Went to see Eric Clapton in Bangkok

Rocking chair with jet engines
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/02/18/life/images/30148984-06.jpg
I sat there watching an old man. There were several telling moments in the show, and one of them came during "Layla" - we got the acoustic version, alas. To me he looked for all the world like a grizzled old geezer on a park bench, oversize glasses halfway down his nose, squinting into the distance, challenging passers-by as if to say, "Do you know who I used to be?"
It comes to us all !!

Palm Oil Shortage

DSI launches probe on palm oil hoarding
The Thai Government have decreed that diesel must contain 3% palm oil, this is to start to achieve CO2 emmission targets, but now we have a major shortage of cooking oil in the markets here and the price has shot up above the government set price limit. Lack of joined up thinking, 3% of diesel usage is way above the normal level of cooking oil consumption.

Beer Culture in Thailand

See this article for explanation of beer culture in Thailand. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/bloomberg-who-likes-his-beer-with-ice-would-fit-right-in-in-thailand/?hp

Cambodian, Thai troops clash near Disputed Temple

PHNOM PENH, February 4, 2011 (AFP) - Thai and Cambodian soldiers exchanged heavy arms fire near a disputed temple on the two countries' shared border on Friday, officials said, as tensions between the neighbours boiled over.

Chhum Socheat, a spokesman for the Cambodian Ministry of Defence, said both sides were using "mortar and artillery". The Thai army reported two wounded in the skirmish, which follows reports of a military buildup on both sides of the border in recent days. Shells had landed close to the ancient Preah Vihear temple area, which is claimed by both sides, locals said, but reports suggested the fighting later subsided.
Thai Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon played down the significance of the incident. "We are negotiating now and I am sure that everything will be fine," he said.
Both Thailand and Cambodia accused the other of starting the fighting, the first since April 2009.
Cambodia's state news agency reported that "at least four" Thai soldiers were believed to have been captured, quoting government spokesman Phay Siphan, accusing Thai troops of "invading".
"We have a right to self-defence against the Thai invasion to protect our land," he said.
Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said he did not know what had initially sparked it. "They fired at us first so we retaliated," he said. A Thai army official at the border said fighting broke out at 3.10pm local time (0810 GMT) at Phu Makuea, near the 11th-century temple.
Residents in nine villages along the Thai side of the frontier have been asked to take shelter or leave the area, said a senior district official at Kantharalak in the border province of Si Sa Ket.
Cambodia is also evacuating villages in the area.
Thailand's Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya was Friday in Cambodia for talks with his Cambodian counterpart. Tensions between the two countries have flared in recent weeks in the wake of the arrest of seven Thai nationals for illegal entry into Cambodia in late December.
Five of the group were given suspended sentences and have since returned to Thailand. The other two, high-profile nationalist activist Veera Somkwamkid and his secretary, were sentenced to lengthy jail terms for spying, in a case that has caused outrage among Thailand's "Yellow Shirts".
Another border spat has focused on the Keo Sikha Kiri Svara Pagoda, which is built in the disputed area. Thailand on Monday demanded that Cambodia remove its flag from the pagoda, which it said was "situated on Thai territory" -- a claim Cambodia vehemently rejects.
Both sides have been talking tough on the border issue, which some observers say serves nationalist goals at home on both sides. But a foreign observer who did not wish to be named expressed surprise at the clash as both armies had appeared to be keen to ease hostilities.
"They will try to calm any increase in tensions coming from the politicians. They do not want to fight, especially not over politics," he said.
Ties between the neighbouring countries have been strained since July 2008 by a series of deadly border clashes over land surrounding the temple after it was granted UN World Heritage status.
The World Court ruled in 1962 that Preah Vihear itself belonged to Cambodia, although its main entrance lies in Thailand. The exact boundary through the surrounding grounds remains in dispute.
The Thai-Cambodia border has never been fully demarcated, partly because it is littered with landmines left over from decades of war in Cambodia.
Hundreds of Yellow Shirts have camped out around Government House in Bangkok since last week, demonstrating against its handling of the border dispute, and the group plans a larger rally on Saturday. Yellow Shirts are a force to be reckoned with in Thailand's colour-coded politics and have helped to claim the scalps of three governments in under five years, including that of fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

January in England

Tony Tours Thailand went to England in January, click on the picture to see more walking on Kinder, a visit to the climbing wall and some pubs in Stockport