Water pipe in Suvarnabhumi toilet comes loose

Baggage damaged by leak on lower floor

A pipe in the toilet of a passenger terminal in trouble-plagued Suvarnabhumi airport came loose, causing water to leak and seep down to the lower floor and damage baggage, the airport director said yesterday. The problem adds yet another concern to the growing question of the reliability of the three-month-old airport. It has been plagued by a host of problems, the most serious of which include runway and taxiway cracks.

Suvarnabhumi director Somchai Sawasdeepol said a connecting joint in a pipe in one of the toilets on the third floor of the terminal came loose. Water then leaked, some seeping down to the baggage storage room on the second floor below.

The water damaged some bags and their owners would be compensated, the director said. Airport workers turned off the water valve and mopped up the area.

Also yesterday, a worker in the construction project building a train link to the airport was crushed to death by falling metal scaffolding.

The body of Rungchai Moongpulklang, 18, was pulled from the wreckage. Police suspected the accident, which occurred in Lat Krabang, was caused by scaffolding bearing too much weight.

Meanwhile, Democrat party deputy spokesman Apichart Sakdiset demanded the government express regret over the resignation of the Bangkok Post's former news editor Chadin Tephaval, and the dismissal of senior reporter Sermsuk Kasitipradit due to a Suvarnabhumi runway cracks report in 2005.

Mr Apichart said the Bangkok Post was the first newspaper to expose the cracks but was rebuked harshly by then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra for being unpatriotic. The Post front page story on Aug 8, 2005 quoted a source as saying a team of US experts hired by Mr Thaksin to inspect Suvarnabhumi airport had found cracks on the runway. The paper retracted the story and apologised the following day.

On March 13 last year, the Criminal Court opened the first hearing on the case in which Bancha Pattanaporn, acting president of Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT), and New Bangkok International Airport company (NBIA), sued Post Publishing Plc as publisher of the Bangkok Post and its editor Kowit Sanandang on charges of defamation over the paper's runway crack coverage.

Mr Apichart said the discovery now of cracks in the runway and taxiways was a national embarrassment.

''Who will be responsible for what happened to the Bangkok Post and the fate of the two senior staff?'' Mr Apichart said.

He added the Thai Journalists Association and the Press Council of Thailand must take the issue as a case study of political pressure on the media while the Bangkok Post should also reconsider the punishment ordered against Mr Chadin and Mr Sermsuk for the sake of the working morale of its news staff.

Mr Sermsuk said in an interview on iTV that he had no hidden agenda in reporting the runway cracks story.

Bangkok Post
Sunday January 28, 2007