Developers and Chat Thai man seek to downplay storm surge risks: Smith

"It's fine with me if Chat Thai Party is not concerned about safety and benefit of the public, but they should not use their political influence to further threaten me, because I educate the public about natural disasters and ways to cope with them," Smith said.

"I am not involved in politics."

Smith said the unnamed MP, a party deputy spokesman, criticised him because developers in Samut Sakhon were losing prospective clients, as some homebuyers had taken back their deposit money and abort¬ed plans to homes in many housing projects there.

He said the MP had sent a letter to the Samut Sakhon gov¬ernor and governors in nearby provinces encouraging them to publicly call on him to stop talking about storm surges.

Smith said the letter cited a Meteorological Department document that showed low possibility of storm surges in Thailand.

"The department has actu¬ally never had such statistics about storm surges at all," he said.

Smith said many real estate developers had called and criticised him after their projects lost clients.

"They later approached politicians and ask them to stop me from publicly voicing my concern about storm surges, just for their own benefit, but not for the sake of public safety."

He said it was better for the public to panic about possible natural disasters than to stay quiet and leave them at risk.

Seri Suppharathit, a Rangsit University lecturer, echoed Smith's warning. He said that Bangkok and adjacent areas would be flooded within the next 15 years if nothing was done to stop it. Over the next 10 years, 2 per cent of waves hitting Bangkok's coast and near¬by provinces would have an average height of 24 metres, which is higher than current figures.