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Flooding kills 32 in Thailand, Malaysia

The death toll from flooding has risen to 27 in southern Thailand where thousands of people stranded in remote villages are sick from flood-related diseases, officials said yesterday, while flooding in northern Malaysia killed at least five people and left more than 20,000 people homeless.

Thai Interior Minister Kongsak Wantana said about half a million people were affected by the floods in nine southern provinces and that six army helicopters dropped food and medicine to people trapped by flood waters.

``More than 40,000 people are sick from flood-related diseases'' such as conjunctivitis, Public Health Minister Phinij Jarusombat told reporters.

The Disaster Prevention Center said yesterday that 27 people have died in floods over the past two weeks but gave no details of the latest victims.

Meanwhile, more than 12,000 people in hard-hit Pattani Province have been evacuated to higher ground, said Pattani Governor Panu Uthairat. He said rescue teams had to wait until daylight to start work because they feared attacks by separatists in the violence-plagued province.

``We received reports from several sources that people are trapped there and are waiting to be rescued, but we had to wait for sunrise, otherwise we could have stepped into a trap of insurgents,'' Panu said.

He has ordered more than 600 schools closed.

In hard-hit neighboring Songkhla Province, Governor Somporn Chaibangyang said yesterday afternoon that the rains have stopped, but every district in his province is flooded, 1m or 2m in some places.

Somporn said nine people have died in Songkhla, including seven in two landslides, one who was electrocuted, and another who drowned.

The floods, triggered by heavy rains over the past two weeks, prompted the government over the weekend to declare nine southern provinces disaster zones.

Further south, a 69-year-old man who refused to be evacuated from his home was found drowned yesterday in the northernmost Malaysian state of Perlis, where 4,500 people have been sent to relief centers, the Malaysian news agency Bernama reported.

Casualties over the weekend included a disabled 22-year-old woman who drowned in Terengganu state and a 23-year-old man and another unidentified man who died in separate incidents in Kelantan state on Saturday, the Utusan Malaysia daily said.

The New Straits Times newspaper reported that a five-year-old boy was swept away from the family car in Kelantan on Sunday and his body was found in a rice field some distance away.

About 5,900 people were rescued and sent to relief centers in Kelantan and Terengganu.

In Kedah, some 10,900 people had been evacuated from their homes by yesterday morning. Authorities are also searching for four missing rescue workers swept away by strong currents after their boat capsized yesterday while they were conducting patrols in Kedah.

Malaysia's Meteorological Department warned yesterday that a tropical depression over the South China Sea could turn into a tropical storm in the coming days.
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