FROC, BMA assigned to jointly solve flood problems

BANGKOK, November 23 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has ordered the government's Flood Relief Operations Centre (FROC) and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to work together to quickly resolve flood-related problems, including flood drainage methods. In response to an unsettled issue between the FROC and the BMA on the operation of sluice gates in the Maha Sawat and the Thawee Watthana Canals in Bangkok's western side to relieve deep flooding in adjacent Nonthaburi Province, Yingluck said on Wednesday that the BMA has tried to protect the capital from floods and the FROC has to cope with overall flooding; so, she has ordered both the FROC and the BMA to jointly work out flood relief measures and find the best way out as soon as possible. Yingluck acknowledged that flooding in some parts of Bangkok has mostly been receding, flood solutions should, therefore, be reviewed to relieve hardships of flood-affected people in Bangkok's suburban Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani Provinces, asking people in the capital to accept some floodwater to ease the hardships of flood victims in the peripheral provinces. The prime minister admitted to difficulties in negotiating with flood victims holding mass rallies to demand for more opening of sluice gates to relieve their neighbourhoods from deep flooding, asking people in some areas in the capital to allow flood drainage for the sake of societal and national interests with a quick end of the country's flooding crisis eventually. (TNA)