BANGKOK: A total of 381 people have been confirmed dead in Thailand’s worst floods that have inundated many provinces since July, the government said Sunday.
The Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department said the floods, which affected 62 of 77 provinces, have started receding in some areas.
The floods affected over 9.4 million people across the country, Xinhua reported.
Capital city Bangkok’s outer areas have been inundated and one airport badly hit.
One of the most severe in over half a century, the disaster caused by heavy monsoon rains and tropical storms damaged hundreds of roads and highways. Thousands of factories were inundated, putting over 600,000 employees at risk of losing their jobs, officials said.
Peak tides tested Bangkok’s flood defences on Sunday as hope rose the centre of the Thai capital might escape the worst floods in decades, but that was little comfort for swamped suburbs and provinces where worry about disease is growing.
The floods have killed at least 381 people since July and affected more than 2 million. Authorities have slashed growth forecasts for Southeast Asia’s second biggest economy and disruptions to auto and computer-part producers have been felt worldwide.
Water flowing down the central Chao Phraya river basin from the north is meeting peak tides surging in the Gulf of Thailand, 20 km south of Bangkok, leading to fears the city’s makeshift defences would be swamped.
The tides have pushed water in the river, which snakes its way through the city past gilded temples and wooden shanties, about 2.5 metres (8 feet) above sea level but dikes and sandbag walls have largely held.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, a political novice who took over this year after an election that many Thais hoped would heal chronic political divisions, said the city’s fate rested with its network of dikes and sandbag walls.
People in Thonburi’s Bang Phlad neighbourhood battled in vain to shore up a crumbling sandbag wall and women screamed as water from the swollen river surged into a commercial street. In some areas, crocodiles have escaped from flooded farms and snakes searching for dry land have slithered into homes. (Agencies)