It started raining mid-morning Sunday 2nd August, just as we were thinking to go out to the Tea Farm, and it has not stopped for 36 hours. Tropical Storm Sinlaku, the first real tropical depression of the 2020 South East Asian monsoon season, has arrived.
The remains of the new highway between the northern cities of Chiang Mai & Chiang Rai. Image credit: citylife.com
Image credit: CM108.com
Some 300 people and 120 vehicles are stranded in mountainous territory between the 32 and 40km markers posts along the Chiang Rai 118 Highway, where the road has been completely swept away in no less than 6 places! Helicopter access is challenging so they will spend a second night sheltering in a local school building. Food and drinking water were ferried in, zip line style today, on downed power lines.
Video credit: CM108.com
Much closer to home, 200 homes were evacuated this morning as flood levels rose and submerged outer suburban and rice field areas not far from our home.
Image credit: CM108.com
To the north of us, forest run off is MASSIVE, and many small villages are isolated by landslides, major trees down and blocking roads, and flooding.
In the northern Thai town of Loei, close to the Laos DPR border, 500 homes were damaged or destroyed.
The villagers, who were visited by Loei governor Chaiwat Chuenkosum, said the storm took them by surprise. In fact, an elderly member of the community said this was possibly the worst disaster in centuries. Source
If you're ever wondering why Thai people continue to make spirit offerings in rice fields, this would be why.
Image credit: Siwakorn Odochao.
This is the first real tropical storm of the season - we have another 2 months of this ahead. A typical monsoon season will see 7, 8 or sometimes 9 of these major storm cells move through Asia.
Meanwhile, all the countries around us are similarly affected by the same storm. Southern China has catastrophic flooding, as do Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Burma and Bangladesh will get their turn soon when the western monsoon move through a little later.
Environmental impacts? Huge. Social impacts of losing newly planted rice after 5 months of unemployment due to Covid-19? Urgh. This is in a country without a social security system. Global food prices? absolutely they will be affected. Thailand is one of the largest suppliers of not only rice, but fruit and seafood in the world.
What did social media endlessly talk about today online? Personal freedom and the endless face mask debate. facepalm Tonight, Monday night, it is again POURING RAIN outside, and I'm tired of first word privilege.
Meanwhile, yesterday, Baghdad recorded it's hottest day ever - 51C (125F). Which drives hot air HIGH up into the atmosphere, where it begins and fuels this monsoonal cycle which ripples around the globe. Spiraling. And my beloved Tasmania, Australia, is expecting snowfalls not only in the mountains, like usual, but all the way down to sea level.
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