Thailand Floods — Please Pray for the Country and People of Thailand

First, I would like to thank you — my blog read­ers, vis­i­tors and sub­scribers, as well as our Face­book Com­mu­nity Mem­bers — Thank YOU for your Prayers and con­cerns about Thailand’s worst floods in half a cen­tury — heavy rains in here dur­ing Sep­tem­ber and Octo­ber have led to extreme flood­ing that has killed nearly 400 peo­ple and dis­plac­ing 110,000 more, 2.2 mil­lion peo­ple got affected, which caused this nation’s most expen­sive nat­ural dis­as­ter in history.

Until now, the time I write this post, the floods have sub­merged 4 mil­lion acres (1.6 mil­lion hectares) of land, an area roughly the size of Kuwait or Swazi­land, turn­ing entire cities into urban reservoirs.

The floods wiped out a quar­ter of the main rice crop in the world’s biggest exporter. It forced Thai­land, the world second-largest exporter of com­puter hard dri­ves and South­east Asia’s biggest auto pro­duc­tion hub to rise it global prices of com­puter hard dri­ves, and caused delays in global auto pro­duc­tion after destroy­ing indus­trial estates.

At this moment, Bangkok, which accounts for 41 per­cent of Thailand’s $319 bil­lion econ­omy, has been at risk from run-off water from the north coin­cid­ing with the high tide on the Chao Phraya, already at a record high level.

Alham­dulil­lah (thanks God), because I am liv­ing in the inner city of Bangkok, the country’s finan­cial heart, my area up-to-now is still dry, so I am safe and fine, but I can feel the air is intense. I really wish those bot­tles of drink­ing water (can’t buy any­more because no sup­ply), some eggs, dry food, instant noo­dles and oak that I bought can get me over­come this flood cri­sis, inshaAl­lah (God willing).

But the city’s sub­urbs faced a grow­ing crisis.

I don’t know how long my area’s dry can last, as I know the city remained in peril, as high tides along the gulf were expected to crest again late today, and in the next two days, threat­en­ing to obstruct the flood runoff from the north. The gov­ern­ment also is wor­ried major bar­ri­ers and dikes could break, the city’s flood defenses are still under test.

Today, 29th Oct 2011, Bangkok’s main water­way, the Chao Phraya River has over­flowed its banks in some areas dur­ing unusu­ally high tides, few places like Chi­na­town, streets around Bangkok’s Grand Palace and areas that usu­ally thronged with tourists has also got hit by the floods.

And the local author­i­ties expect Thon­buri, a dis­trict on the west bank of the Chao Phraya, to be inun­dated within 3 days. Thai PM Yingluck said lev­els should stay high due to a lack of canals. Sev­en­teen roads across Bangkok are already closed.

Densely pop­u­lated Pingk­lao, packed with restau­rants and shops in Thon­buri close to the river was under waist-high water. Some res­i­dents waded through the floods, haul­ing tele­vi­sions and fur­ni­ture on their backs to higher ground.

Build­ings across Bangkok have been sand-bagged for pro­tec­tion. Many res­i­dents and for­eign­ers have fled the city in the past few days, or stocked up on water, food, boots, life jack­ets and even boats.

In Bangkok, prices of eggs have quadru­pled as jit­tery res­i­dents stock­pile sta­ples, but the gov­ern­ment said flood vic­tims would have enough bot­tled drink­ing water, dairy prod­ucts and meats.

Cash was also in heavy demand, the Bank of Thai­land has repeated that there is enough money cir­cu­lat­ing to meet demand for three months fol­low­ing a crush of with­drawals, so far, there are nearly 400 bank branches have closed across the coun­try due to the floods.

Well, every­thing has a start and end, 3 months of relent­less mon­soon rains have caused the worst flood­ing in Thai­land in more than half a cen­tury, trig­ger­ing a national crisis.

The flood has been going on for so long, now it reached to its last crit­i­cal stage. Now, Bangkok is in the way — sur­rounded by behe­moth pools of water flow­ing around and through the city via a com­plex net­work of canals and rivers.

I am truly feel sorry for the peo­ple of Thai­land who are fac­ing mas­sive floods caused by unusu­ally heavy mon­soon rains.

If you are hap­pened to read this post, since it is a nat­ural phe­nom­e­non, please pray for Thai­land and the peo­ple here so that the sit­u­a­tion will not esca­late into dis­as­trous pro­por­tions in the days to come.

May Allah helps Thai­land and let this flood cri­sis get over soon, and may your coun­try to con­tinue to enjoy peace, pros­per­ity, polit­i­cal sta­bil­ity and be free from nat­ural dis­as­ters, ameen.