Lessons from Thailand’s 2011 floods exposed

BANGKOK, December 21 (TNA) - In the immediate wake of Thailand's flooding crisis this year, the worst in several decades, civil engineers and disaster planning experts are now urging all parties in the country to learn from the inundation disaster-borne lessons. Their call was made on Wednesday at a seminar in Bangkok titled “Lessons learned from the 2011 Thailand Flood Disaster and Future Directions for Flood Prevention and Mitigation”, co-hosted by the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and the ASEAN Affairs Magazine. Speaking at the seminar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the ASEAN Affairs Magazine Swarup Roy emphasized the need to create more awareness among people on how best to respond to disasters, saying that during any disaster, stronger collaboration among sectors to, for instance, ensure sufficient access to proper and updated information by all, is considered necessary to increase people’s chances of survival. The ASEAN Affairs Magazine CEO also urged the public to realize ecological values and stop conspiring to acts contributing to polluted air, water and earth, in order to save the environment and the planet. Various flood mitigation concepts were also presented at the seminar, including a potential 300 billion baht water diversion project for canals in the central Thai region. The session also discussed on how Thailand will utilize or apply latest satellite remote sensing technologies for flood prevention and mitigation plans in the future. (TNA)