Authorities in Thailand say floodwaters have begun to enter the north side of Bangkok's secondary airport, another sign of the nation's deepening crisis that has killed 366 people over the last three months.
The advancing waters shut down commercial flights on Tuesday at Don Muang airport, which is used mostly for domestic flights, and further eroded public confidence in the government's ability to defend Bangkok's nine million people. Yingluck Shinawatra, the Thai prime minister, has yet to declare a state of emergency.
Patee Sarasin, chief executive officer of Nok Air CEO, said on Tuesday his budget airline was halting operations until November 1 at Don Muang. Sarasin said flights would be directed to Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, the country's main international gateway.
A spokesman at Don Muang confirmed that water had entered the northern section of the airport that also houses the government's flood crisis centre.
"We are thinking of moving it. Although there is no flooding inside it, we are still facing transport disruptions out there. We will discuss this issue at the cabinet meeting today," said Yingluck in an address earlier on Tuesday.
Holiday declared
In another decision, the Thai government declared the five days between October 27 and October 31 to be a special holiday in parts of the country. According to some reports, more than two million people in Thailand have been affected by the flooding.
Chumphol Silpa-Archa, the minister of tourism, said after a cabinet meeting that there would be a holiday in 21 provinces including Bangkok, creating a five-day break for schools, businesses and government offices.
Thousands of Bangkok residents have been moving to higher ground, as floodwaters threatened areas closer to the commercial district.
Late on Monday, Suhumbhand Paribatra, governor of Bangkok, warned residents in the northwestern Bang Phlat district to move their belongings to higher ground after water in the Chao Phraya river crept into the area through a subway construction site.
"I would like to ask people in Bang Phlad district to move your valuables and other belongings to higher ground for your own safety," Paribatra said.
Temporary shelters
The flood crisis centre said water levels in provinces north of Bangkok were stable or subsiding, but added that massive run-off was still bearing down on Bangkok as waters flowed south towards the Gulf of Thailand. Authorities have declared seven of the capital's 50 districts at risk.
North of Bangkok, whole provinces have been inundated, knocking out a series of industrial areas and putting at least 640,000 people temporarily out of work.
Prominent Japanese companies such as Toyota, Sony and Nikon have had to close down operations. According to estimates, the floods have caused economic damage worth $6bn.
In what has been identified as Thailand's worst flooding in five decades, more than 100,000 people have been forced to live in temporary shelters and about 700,000 are seeking medical attention.
Amid Debris in Turkey, Survivors and Signs of Poor Construction
Dimitar Dilkoff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A building in Ercis, Turkey, that collapsed Sunday.
By SEBNEM ARSU .. Published: October 25, 2011
ISTANBUL — Rescue teams continued on Tuesday to pull survivors from piles of twisted metal and chunks of concrete in eastern Turkey, a region devastated by a major earthquake on Sunday afternoon.
Rescuers tended on Tuesday to a 2-week-old baby named Azra, one of more than 30 people who have been found alive in the rubble. .. Reuters
The New York Times .. two more images inside ..
A 2-week-old girl named Azra was found alive in the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in the town of Ercis, television networks reported. Her mother and grandmother were also pulled to safety.
Late Tuesday, rescue workers freed an 11-year-old, Serhat Gur, from the destruction in a nearby city, Van. The nation was gripped by television images of his rescue, but hours later it was reported that he had not survived his ordeal.
So far, more than 30 people have been found alive, trapped in the rubble in Van, the city hit worst by the earthquake, Ercis and other towns and villages in the region near the border with Iran. More than 2,260 buildings in Van and the vicinity were damaged or destroyed.
Rescuers continued to hold out hope that there would be more survivors, but the widespread destruction and the deteriorating weather — the temperature in Van dipped below 30 degrees overnight — suggested that the death toll may continue to rise.
At least 459 people were killed by the earthquake and its aftermath and more than 1,350 people were injured, the Disaster Coordination Center in Ankara said Tuesday. Tens of thousands appear to be homeless.
Aerial photographs on Tuesday from the eastern province of Van showed devastation in Ercis, where more than 50 buildings on a main road had collapsed and rooftops were pancaked. In surrounding villages, many mud-brick buildings were demolished.
Questions were raised about the quality of construction in the area, with some buildings having remained completely intact while those next door were destroyed. The region is officially designated as earthquake prone, along with many other areas of Turkey that contain active faults.
“We saw the construction material in many demolished areas to be merely sand, randomly mixed with pebble, that fell into pieces with minor force,” an emergency worker said on NTV television. “Here, you see,” he said as he crumbled a large stone into dust in his hand.
Thousands of tents have been distributed to people who are reluctant to return home, given the powerful aftershocks that have followed the magnitude 7.2 earthquake, or who have no homes to return to. In Ercis, a soccer stadium has been converted into a tent city. More than 15,000 tents have been distributed in and around Van.
Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said there was a need for more tents and other supplies.
“There is an evident shortage,” Mr. Atalay said, addressing Parliament, which convened on Tuesday to address the earthquake relief work.
More than 50 countries offered assistance almost immediately after the earthquake; the government initially declined the offers, saying it had sufficient resources. The only offer that was accepted came from Azerbaijan, which supplied two airplanes and more than 100 aid workers.
Later, however, Turkey asked Israel for mobile homes and tents. Relations between the two nations were badly strained after Israeli commandos killed nine people on a Turkish flotilla that was trying to run the blockade of Gaza last year.
An Israeli plane was scheduled to bring seven portable structures to Turkey on Wednesday, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. And the Iraqi Kurds have donated $1 million.
On Tuesday, more than 200 specialists were busy assessing the damage in Van and neighboring communities. With large red cross marks, they noted structures they determined to be unstable. Many people were unwilling to return home, even if their houses had survived the destruction.
“There has been just another powerful aftershock,” Fehmi Adiguzel, a resident of Van, said in a telephone interview as he sat in a restaurant with his wife. The couple spent Sunday and Monday nights in the lobby of a hotel.
“Electricity has been cut in fear of fires, and we are all staying outside, so it’s of course hard to get tents for us all,” he said. “Not only tents, people also urgently need blankets. It is cold here at nights.”
The aftershocks also panicked inmates at a prison in Van, and they burned blankets and demanded to be let out. Some of the prison’s walls collapsed on Sunday, allowing more than 150 inmates to escape. Fifty of them returned, NTV television reported.
Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has been evacuated after about 2,000 protesters surrounded the building on Wednesday.
The department's director general Tharit Pengdit says the evacuation took place after an attempt by protestors to shut down key government buildings and ministries.
The DSI is Thailand's equivalent of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
It is one of several state offices that demonstrators are targeting in hope of toppling Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's government.
The anti-government protesters, led by former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban, chanted abuse at the DSI as scores of riot police scrambled to put on helmets and hold up shields as crowds pushed against a low fence.
The DSI shares the compound with important government agencies, including tax, revenue, immigration and land departments.
Some employees were seen leaving their offices and joining the protests.
Ongoing protests
Five ministries in the capital have been evacuated in the past two days and protesters are occupying the Finance Ministry.
About 3,000 people gathered at the Energy Ministry, 700 at the Commerce Ministry and 200 at the Industry Ministry, according to police reports.
Provincial rallies ranged from 20 people in Narathiwat to 4,000 in Surat Thani, Mr Suthep's political base.
Most of the 19 provinces where demonstrators had massed are in the south, a traditional stronghold of the opposition Democrat Party.
But four were in the north and northeast, where former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his family is hugely popular.
The target of Wednesday's rallies was to shut down the bureaucracy to wipe out the "political machine of Thaksin", Mr Suthep said.
The protests, though peaceful, have raised fears of unrest.
Anti-government protest leaders, from all sides, have a tradition in Thailand of trying to provoke a violent crackdown by the government to rob it of its legitimacy.
The DSI recently indicted Mr Suthep and former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva for murder for their alleged role in the deaths of more than 90 people in 2010 in a military crackdown on demonstrations by Thaksin's supporters.
One demonstrator Chattavorn Sangsuwan says while the DSI is "supposed to be an independent organization", it has "not acted neutrally".
"We will finish off what the coup-makers started in 2006. Their job was not complete, Thaksin's influence is still everywhere. We are here to finish the job," he said.
The demonstrations have been going on for weeks but are gaining momentum.
Thaksin: a controversial figure
Such protests are familiar in Thailand, which has seen eight years of on-off turmoil, from crippling street protests to controversial judicial rulings and military intervention, each time with Thaksin at the centre of the disputes.
Despite fleeing into exile to dodge a jail sentence for abuse of power in 2008, Thaksin, a former telecommunications mogul, has loomed large over Thai politics.
He won the support of the rural poor who voted him twice into office, in 2001 and 2005, before he was ousted in a 2006 military coup.
His supporters remain fiercely loyal to him and the parties he backs.
While his opponents are fewer in number, they hold considerable power and influence especially over the urban middle class.
Many of them see Thaksin as a corrupt, crony capitalist who manipulates the masses with populist handouts and is a threat to the monarchy, which he denies.
Yingluck responds
Prime Minister Yingluck says the police will keep the peace as there is fear that clashes could erupt and further weaken her government.
"My government will not use force. This is not the 'Thaksin regime', this is a democratically-elected government," she told reporters outside parliament, where she is being grilled by opposition lawmakers in a two-day confidence debate.
The anti-government campaign started last month after Yingluck's ruling Puea Thai Party tried to pass an amnesty bill that critics said was designed to absolve Thaksin of his graft 2008 conviction.
Thailand's Senate rejected the bill, but that did nothing to defuse the crisis.
A spokesperson for the protestors Akanat Promphan says they "don't want any confrontation".
"We will ask civil servants to join the people, to stop working for the Thaksin system," he said.
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