Relief teams yesterday pulled more corpses from receding floodwaters in northern Thailand, where officials fear about 100 people were killed in floods and mudslides.
"One hundred dead is our preliminary estimate, but we are still receiving reports of missing people," Suksan Wanaputi, acting governor of the hardest-hit province of Uttaradit, said.
Mudslides blocked roads to Lab Lae district, where many of the victims are believed to have been swept away by the flood-waters or buried in the mud after the mudslides in the mountainous region, he said.
Up to 2m of water still covered the streets in parts of the province, he added.
So far about 30 bodies had been pulled from the mud and water that covered roads and homes, while 77 people were reported missing and feared dead, the disaster management agency said.
"We think that the number of dead and missing are likely to rise," a disaster official said.
The nearby provinces of Nan, Phrae, Lampang and Sukhothai were also hit by the floods after unusually early monsoon rains drenched northern Thailand at the weekend.
Some 1,200 people have been evacuated, while more than 75,000 have suffered damage either to their homes or their farms, the disaster agency said.
At least 168 homes were destroyed in the floods, while 25 schools, temples or government buildings were damaged, it added.
Some 1,000 people who had been stranded at the Den Chai train station in Phrae Province were rescued late on Tuesday and brought to Bangkok, the State Railway of Thailand said.
trains suspended
But services on lines running north from Bangkok to the city of Chiang Mai were suspended for a second day, railways spokesman Month-skarn Srivilasa said.
"The floods have inundated the rail lines in the north and the water is still high. We have to wait until it recedes so we can repair the tracks," Monthskarn said.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra inspected relief efforts yesterday, touring one inundated school and flying over the flood-hit provinces by helicopter.
Before leaving Bangkok, he said he had authorized the military and police to send heavy equipment to help clear roads and vowed government aid for the flooded region.
Shinawatra blamed the high number of casualties on the lack of any warning system for flash flooding. Some advocates in Thailand have pushed for such systems, though they have not drawn substantial attention.
"The alarm system is insufficient. I will push for alarms to be installed more quickly in the extremely at-risk areas," Thaksin said.
Thaksin also blamed the flood devastation in part on illegal logging in the region, where rampant clear-cutting has left many hillsides barren.
"There is frequently illegal logging in that area and local officials have tried to solve the problem. We did manage to arrest a few people recently," he told reporters.
Thaksin made the trip just one day after he formally returned to office. Seven weeks ago, he stepped aside in the wake of street protests and a controversial election that has since been invalidated by the courts.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS