For the past month, aircraft stationed at airfields around Thailand have been flying sorties almost daily, carrying out a mission of national importance -- the war on drought, the country's worst in seven years.
HUA HIN, Thailand — For the past month, aircraft stationed at airfields around Thailand have been flying sorties almost daily, carrying out a mission of national importance -- the war on drought, the country's worst in seven years.
These planes carry payloads not of bombs, but of rainmaking chemicals, prepared to specifications personally developed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is also in overall command of the operation.
On the flight line at rainmaking central in this seaside town, aviators preparing for their flights wear uniforms with shoulder patches proudly describing their duty: "Cloud Attackers."
After loading up with the appropriate chemicals, a small Indonesian-made plane makes a morning takeoff and gains an altitude of 1,525 meters (5,000 feet) chasing some clouds, which can be hard to catch.
"If there is a strong wind, it can move the cloud away," explains pilot Jiti Tewan.
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Once the target is secured, the crew begins spraying sodium chloride into the atmosphere through a tube at the rear of the plane.
"These are little clouds. We will have to create more clouds by forming a skeletal structure for water vapor to cling on to," explains the technician on board, Sumol Butsaendee.
There are two more stages to go. A few hours later pilots use a smaller aircraft to head for another bumpy ride through the lower part of the clouds and spray out dry ice to "fatten" them up with greater humidity.
On a final run, other chemicals are sprayed to lower the cloud's temperature, which is supposed to trigger rain.
This year's drought, which is also affecting neighboring countries, has damaged 2 million hectares (5.2 million acres) of farmland, and caused 7.5 billion baht (US$191 million; euro147 million) in economic losses. More than 9 million people in 71 of Thailand's 76 provinces have been directly affected by water shortages.
Reservoirs in the poverty-stricken northeast, where most people farm for a living, were down to less than 8 per cent of capacity. Many people had to rely on trucked-in supplies of drinking water -- irrigating fields was out of the question.
The revered 77-year-old king called the government's attention to the problem in early March, as it was becoming critical. This led the government to establish a special rainmaking center at Hua Hin, 230 kilometers (143 miles) south of Bangkok, where the king's summer palace is also located.
The constitutional monarch, who for decades had studied and promoted water management as essential for development, was put in command. Since then the center had ordered more than 575 flights from nine fields around the country.
Cloud seeding, which dates back to the 1940s, is a controversial process among weather experts, with many scientists claiming that its efficacy is limited and unproven. But it is widely used all over the world.
Generally, it relies on such chemicals as silver iodide to form ice crystals that melt as they fall through a storm cloud.
In Thailand, cloud seeding has a powerful patron: the king, who is not only a promoter, but also an innovator. Based on his decades of study and observation, he's come up with his own cloud seeding process.
His formula, invented in 1971, is now in the process of being patented in the United States and Europe, said Wattana Sukarnjanaset, director of the Hua Hin Rainmaking Center. The patents are being sought because of worries about the increasing thefts of intellectual property, Wattana said.
According to Wattana, several Asian countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, have sought technical assistance from Thailand for rainmaking.
Wattana says the rainmaking operation has been largely successful.
A recent Interior Ministry report said the rainmaking efforts had helped solve the drought problem in six provinces which account for 26 percent of the actual drought-affected area.
But more than 4,000 villages nationwide are still marked as being in "red zones," meaning people do not have enough water for consumption, let alone farming.
The Cloud Attackers continue the fight.
"We are happy when rain falls at the end of the day," says one.
Source: Associated Press
