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.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS