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.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS