Water Rationing Imposed Across 1/3 Of Thailand; Roads Collapsing, Rice Crop In Serious Trouble

[hatrack]

BANG PLA MA (Thailand) • Ms Ranong Rachasing would normally be in her fields at this time of the year, toiling in ankle-deep water to make her rice paddies bloom through knowledge honed by years of cultivating Thailand's most celebrated export.

Now the wizened 57-year-old's fields lie fallow, baking under a blazing summer sun. "This year is worse than any other. There has been no rain, so there is no water. It is the most severe drought I've ever seen," she said while standing in a cracked field in Bang Pla Ma district, Suphanburi province, a two-hour drive north of Bangkok.

Thailand's vital rice belt is being battered by one of the worst droughts in living memory with the prospect of a dismal main harvest.

Water levels in some of the major reservoirs are at their lowest levels in 20 years, prompting the ruling junta to call on farmers in the Chao Praya river basin to delay sowing crops. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has also ordered officials to clear irrigation channels, dig more ground wells and employ cloud-seeding technology to create artificial rainfall. But the wet season has yet to arrive in earnest.


EDIT

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/thailands-vital-rice-belt-drying-up

EDIT

http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/07/19/water-rationing-takes-place-in-almost-a-third-of-thailand

[daleanime]

1. kick, kick, kick....

[oldandhappy]

2. ouch

thank you for the post

serious situation

[SusanCalvin]

3. My massage therapist was telling me about this.

What a mess we humans have created.

[mopinko]

4. dust bowls a comin.