Baby in hand, a man deftly crosses over sandbags as other residents watch amid floodwaters in Angthong’s Muang district yesterday.

Suvarnabhumi Airport has warned the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) not to drain floodwater into its area as this would cause severe inundation problems for the new facility.

Somchai Sawasdeepon, general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport, said yesterday he would inform the directors of Lat Krabang and Prawes districts that the airport had no capacity to receive a run-off from outside its precincts as the irrigation canal inside the airport was already about 50 per cent full.

"More water could cause severe flooding and cause huge damage to the airport," he said after being consulted by the directors about draining floodwater from the two districts into the airport's area.

Eastern Bangkok's Lat Krabang and Prawes districts have suffered severe flooding this year. District officials have attempted to drain floodwater by using 60 electrical pumps, but they are not coping adequately.

Somchai refused to accept that construction of the airport caused the flooding even though it took up over 20,000 rai of irrigation area.

He said preparations for the construction included more than 40 canals dug around the site to dam floodwater. It had successfully prevented inundation in Lat Krabang and Prawes for the past two years. But the canals were now clogged by foliage and weeds, which had caused the flooding in the area this year.

Bangkok governor Apirak Kosayodhin said district directors had consulted the airport executive about the flooding problem as they saw the airport had good water-retention and thus might help by receiving run-off from the city.

But he said the BMA had no plans at the moment to drain floodwater to the airport area.

Montri Maneewong, an engineer at Klong Dan Irrigation Project, said the flood situation in the inner city would not affect Suvarnabhumi as it had a barrier two metres higher than the seawater level, and this could manage even after five days and nights of non-stop rain.

Floodwater from the North would not affect the airport as it would be drained through canals outside and released into the Gulf of Thailand.

BMA flood prevention officer Sansern Ruangrit said while the new airport was capable of keeping itself flood-free, it could take any run-off from outside its boundaries.

He said construction of the airport diverted four irrigation canals, and that caused slow drainage of floodwater from Lat Krabang and Prawes. There was only Chaiyanu-chit Irrigation Canal left to release water to Klong Dan and the sea.

Sansern said the sheer volume of rainwater carried by the Chao Phya River combined with high sea tides had caused the severe flooding in eastern Bangkok. Also, many housing estates had been constructed in Lat Krabang and that had also obstructed run-off to canals.

Samart Choknapitak, head of the Royal Irrigation Department, said water from the North passed down the Chao Phya yesterday at 3,000 cubic metres per second.