Bangkok prison suspends visits, university cancels classes as floods hit city

Following heavy weekend rains that inundated many parts of Bangkok and its suburbs, the Bangkok Remand Prison today announced it suspended all services due to flooding.

Photos showed that the prison’s service areas — including sections for family and lawyer visits — in Chatuchak district were under water.

However, reports indicate that inmate living areas remain unaffected.

Meanwhile, Ramkhamhaeng University announced on its Facebook page that, due to widespread flooding on its main campus, all classes have been suspended.

University officials have been instructed to work from home, while students of the Ramkhamhaeng University Demonstration School, located on the same campus, have been told to adopt a hybrid learning method, attending either online or onsite classes.

Earlier this morning, heavy flooding struck the Chaeng Wattana area after over an hour of intense rainfall drenched Bangkok, particularly in Lak Si district, where 117mm of rain was recorded.

More than a dozen cars were forced to park under the BTS Muang Thong Thani station as owners waited for floodwaters—up to 50 centimeters deep—to recede.

One motorist, Krisana Thongyu, a resident of Pak Kret in Nonthaburi province, told Thai PBS that he has driven along Chaeng Wattana Road for the past 30 years and often encountered flooding that usually subsided within an hour after the rain stopped.

“This time, however, it didn’t recede for about three hours,” he said, adding that he suspects construction from a nearby electric rail project may have blocked drainage, slowing the discharge of floodwater.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s Flood Prevention Centre reported that rainfall in Lak Si district last night reached 117mm in just one hour, classifying it as very heavy rainfall.

The Meteorological Department warned that 10 provinces in central, northern, and southern Thailand are likely to experience widespread rain with isolated heavy showers.

Around 70% of Bangkok is expected to be affected, due to a strong monsoon trough over the eastern and northeastern regions converging with a low-pressure system from central Vietnam and cool air from northern Thailand.