Bangkok’s crazy cables and wires to go underground, project starts this year

Bangkok’s cables and wires, looped haphazardly above the city’s streets, is known not only to be an eye-sore, but also an electrician’s nightmare. Now, the capital’s officials are planning to get around 1,400 kilometres of electrical cables and communication lines underground within the next three years. Work for the project will start this year.

This year, 450 kilometres of communication lines will be placed underground, according to Nation Thailand, citing MP from the ruling Palang Pracharath Party, Korranit Ngamsukonratana. Then, over the course of the next three years, 936 kilometres of the remaining lines will be moved underground.

For the project, city officials will work with the Metropolitan Electricity Authority, Provincial Electricity Authority, and National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission. The MP added that in other provinces, officials plan to move 6,000 kilometres of cables underground.

An international conversation about Bangkok’s tangled wires erupted after actor Russell Crowe visited Thailand to film a movie and posted a photo of the sky and overhead wires with the caption “Bangkok dreaming.” Many commented on the post with photos of wiring bunched, looped, and tangled together. The Metropolitan Electric Authority in Bangkok even released a statement defending itself, saying the cables were not theirs.

SOURCE: Nation Thailand