Our worst fears are now being played out in Hat Yai and Thailand’s south with more rains expected over the next couple of days. Some people have been looked in their rooms, apartments and homes without food and water for nearly a week now. Rescue teams and supplies are insufficient to meet the meets of those trapped by the floods. Dead bodies are being found as rescuers arrive at some homes.
Government recriminations are already occurring with the removal of the Hat Yai district chief following the lack of warnings given before floods engulfed Hat Yai late last Thursday night.
As of Wednesday, some 33 people have been killed by the floods in the south. Some of these people were elderly and unable to evacuate dying in their single level urban dwellings. Embassies are frantically trying to locate their own nationals on work out means to get them to safety. Malaysian Consulate officials in Songkhla has been on the ground assisting Malaysians return home via Dannok on large trucks that can go through the floods. The Malaysian United Sikh community has a group on the ground at central festival Complex in Hat Yai organizing evacuations for Malaysians, but had to temporary suspending evacuations during Wednesday night due to rising floods waters. Water is up to 3 metres depth in some of the hardest hit areas. Most of the city is now knee deep in water. Since Thursday morning flood waters are receding.
Evacuation centres at Prince of Songkla University are now almost full, while there are still many people stranded on balconies by the floods still waiting for assistance. There are also around 500 people who have sort refuge at Hat Yai International Airport.
The destructive nature of the floods is starting to set into the minds of those living in Hat Yai. Some have lost all the furniture, appliances, personal effects, cars and motorbikes. Many people and families won’t have insurance cover and don’t have the savings to replace what they have lost. Many have also lost their small businesses and will find it very difficult to restart due to lack of capital. They are still in their residences not able to do anything.
Worse still, as on Thursday many have not been able to eat anything for days. This is particularly the case in condos and apartment buildings all around Hat Yai. They have been living in rooms with no electricity, water and food, with dead mobile phone batteries, hoping that someone will come to help. The Royal Thai Army has requested any members of the public with boats or jet skies to join in the rescue and food supply efforts. Food trucks are beginning to be set up in town areas where water levels are low enough.
The latest reports on the ground indicate that water levels are falling and the rain is beginning to recede. Severely damaged roads and erosion damage is now being exposed which may take months to repair. Infrastructure is damaged and must be repaired before services are returned to normal. Flooded cars are blocking roads.
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Wholesale logging, clearf felling over the years at least since 1972 when we first visited Hat Yai, Songkla and areas like Yala all of which were a connected rainfall catchment area covered in pristine rainforests were being cleared by Chinesed from Penang, Ipoh and their counterparts in Southern Thailand.
It follows a clear unmistakable pattern throughout South East Asia.
In his book "Asian Godfathers", Cambridge researcher and author Joe Studwell traces the rape and plunder of resources and the systemic corruption of local government going right up to state and federal governments by the pro Kuomintang supporters in Chinese communities in South East Asia.
Whilst the West celebrates them as 'hardworking' innovative and resourcesful communities, they ignore the damage these fly by night capitalists in South East Asia who exploit and plunder South East Asia and the indigenous communities that live there and benefit from their plunder before fleeing to places like Australia where they are now being recognized as the same plagues of locust like communities they are everyhere they go.