Thai supplier Fortune Parts Industry (FPI) says the government has decided to open Bangkok sluice gates in a bid to ease chronic flooding that could see the city faced with severe water problems for the next one to two months.
FPI manufacturers body parts as well as plastics and chrome plating mainly for export around the world and although its Bangkok location has led to challenges with some staff struggling to arrive at work, the company says it is coping.
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“It is going to be flooding here because as the government announced – water dams would be flooding for two to three days – they are opening slowly,” FPI sales exports officer Kenny Lam told just-auto from Bangkok.
“It is about half way to open and it takes about two – to three days to flood. Then the water will take around one to two months [to] go to the river.”
The latest update from the Thai government today (25 October) notes the Bangkok governor as being “gravely concerned” with normal high tide levels around 1.3m surging up to 2.4m – more than the maximum height of the water barrier along the river.
The government is estimating it will need around 10m sandbags to protect the barrier as well as vital institutions such as hospitals. It not yet clear if sandbags in such vast quantities are available.
Fortune Parts is taking its own precautions however and was only able to talk to just-auto from the Thai capital for a brief time as Lam noted the factory was extremely busy shoring up its defences.
“We are protecting our factory now – we are using sandbags and making more walls with cement,” said Lam. This situation could be one to two months.”
The export sales officer said Fortune Parts Industry employed around 1,000 staff but some were unable to travel to work because of the extreme conditions.
Last week the chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) noted Japanese automakers operating in Thailand were being forced to halt production of around 6,000 vehicles a day due to the flooding.
Toshiyuki Shiga added parts suppliers in Thailand were not producing components that could not be replaced by other companies’ products.
Many automakers are looking at taking countermeasures such as bringing in parts from Japan or other production sites, he was reported as saying.
