ABOVE: Future Bangkok could soon disappear beneath the waves like the Randian dystopia of ‘Rapture,’ but at least there’d be no more rooftop pool parties. Photo: Irrational Games
Five years after declaring “Bangkok is sinking,” the Global Post is back with three more words and one more inch to clarify that “Bangkok is sinking into the Earth.”
With drought-linked subsidence causing roads to break apart all over the place, it seems to right time to recall the inevitable swampy doom said to await us all in coming decades.
The report cites claims by a Chulalongkorn University engineer that the Thai capital is sliding back into the muck from which it was born more quickly than believed — four inches annually rather than three.
By 2030, it suggests we’ll all be treading water and really dependent on those pedestrian skywalks to stay above the waterline.
By 2100, forget about it: The city will be “unlivable.” But then again, few of us will be concerned with “livability” anyway.
Writer Patrick Winn doesn’t hesitate to assign the blame for the coming watery doom.
“Like global warming, which will accelerate the city’s submersion by raising the sea level, Bangkok’s sinking woes are repeatedly shrugged off,” Winn writes. “Thailand’s military and civilian rulers alike tend to obsess over immediate concerns (namely power, prestige and money) and keep punting the problem along.”
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