Thailand Takes a Risk to Ease Flood

Thailand Takes a Risk to Ease Flood
Thai officials beat a retreat in their bid to prevent floodwaters from pouring into Bangkok on Thursday, instead adopting a potentially risky new plan for a controlled release of the waters through the city's wholesale silk tiecanals and eastern suburbs.
With massive amounts of water bearing down on the city and worries driving down stock prices in Bangkok and Japan—the biggest foreign investor in polo ralph lauren T-shirtThailand—Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told reporters there was no option left but to let some floodwater drain through parts of the capital to help free up a flood-stricken industrial belt north of the city.
"We must allow the water to flow through," Ms. Yingluck said. "Very little has been driven to the sea."
Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra, from the rival Democrat Party, signed off on the radical solution to the worst floods the country has seen in half a century, which have killed at least 320 people since late July. Mr. Sukhumbhand earlier challenged statements from the national government's flood-response team, urging Bangkoklacoste t-shirts residents to listen to him instead. Relations between city and national leaders have been fraught since a hard-fought election battle brought Ms. Yingluck to power in July.
Bangkok isjuicy couture suits wholesale still mostly dry, but some suburbs are submerged and threaten to inundate the capital.
If the plan works, it could provide some respite for hundreds of businesses affected by the floods, many of them Japanese. Sony Corp. Thursday joinedwholesale abercrombie jackets a lengthening list of big-name Japanese manufacturers like Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. in saying Thailand's extreme flooding has derailed production, closing down either plants or key parts suppliers in recent days.