As floods ease in Thailand for first time in a week, Malaysia braces for new deluge

Floodwaters began to recede on Thursday in parts of southern Thailand including Hat Yai, a major city entirely submerged for five days, revealing grim finds of bodies and unprecedented damage to homes and farmland. The death toll of more than 80 appears certain to rise from a week of flooding that has hit well over 2.5 million people across the entire southernmost provinces of the country. Images shared on social media by stranded residents in Hat Yai alone, showing bodies tied to lamp posts to prevent them from being swept away by the raging torrent, suggest the number of dead is likely to rise. Rescuers called in from across the country have reported finding bodies inside homes that have been inundated with water as high as two to three metres (6.5 to 10 feet). As swathes of the south remain under water, there are fears that emergency responders have yet to reach communities outside urban areas, across the provinces of Songkhla, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat. Experts say the climate crisis is causing heavier, less predictable storms and rain patterns at unusual times of the year, overwhelming flood defences and bringing more frequent misery to vulnerable communities. Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh, an artist in Pattani province, shared photos of his flooded gallery on social media, with neck-high waters swamping his property for a second straight year. “The floods will probably be like this every year,” he told This Week in Asia. “Moving isn’t an option because everywhere gets flooded. I’ll have to adjust how I use the space, but I’ll need to find funding for renovations.” Local authorities in Hat Yai are feeling the pressure, having been accused of slow responses after record rains – the heaviest single-day downpour for 300 years – dumped down on the city on Friday. Since Wednesday, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has been stationed in the south after accusations that his government had been slow to realise the extent of the crisis. He is set to call an election early next year and his political rivals have been quick to accuse the government of a fumbling response after hundreds of thousands of people were left stranded on rooftops, without food or water, as rescuers on jet skis and flat-bottomed boats circled in powerful floodwaters, unable to help. “We can be certain there are many more areas where help has not yet reached, so we still don’t know the full number of casualties,” said Chaturon Chaisang, a veteran Pheu Thai politician and former minister. A dedicated and experienced incident commander must be appointed to coordinate responses to disasters of this scale, instead of local bureaucrats or government ministers, he added. “Peoples’ lives must come before state delays.” Southern Thailand is a major rubber producing region and prices have edged up over fears the crop may be devastated by the floods. Tourism has also been hit hard just as peak visitor season is set to start. Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said on Thursday that 500 more Malaysians are still in southern Thailand despite a major evacuation effort. These include a group of lecturers and students from Universiti Utara Malaysia who have been stranded in their Hat Yai hotel for nearly a week now. In a video that went viral on Wednesday, several students plead for help as one of them is suffering from thalassaemia and has run out of life-saving medicine. “Today the currents have slowed and I was informed that several boats will head there to evacuate them,” Mohamad said. Malaysia on high alert Floods are also hitting Malaysia’s north, with nearly 30,000 people in seven states evacuated to temporary shelters by Thursday morning. Kelantan remains the worst-hit. Evacuees are concentrated in the districts of Tumpat, Kota Bharu and Bachok – all located in the flood-prone zone in the eastern stretch of the Malaysia-Thai border. So far, two have been confirmed dead in the Malaysian floods. The body of a 70-year-old woman was found about 120 metres (400 feet) away after her car was swept away by floodwaters in Kelantan on Wednesday, according to authorities. Also on Wednesday, Malaysia’s navy urged seafarers to take extra precautions after 28 people were rescued in two separate incidents caused by adverse weather on the peninsula’s west coast. The country remains on high alert even as flooding began to moderate in the peninsula, with the meteorological department forecasting a fresh round of heavy rain over the rest of the week due to a rare tropical storm that formed in the Malacca Strait. Tropical Storm Senyar, which formed off the coast of north Sumatra early this week, has been progressively moving towards the peninsula. Senyar is expected to make landfall on the west coast of the peninsula on Thursday, potentially affecting the country’s industrial belt of Penang, Selangor and Johor and capital city Kuala Lumpur. “This situation could potentially cause continuous heavy rain, strong winds and rough seas in peninsula Malaysia,” the department’s director general Mohd Hisham Mohd Anip said in a statement on Thursday. The last time the peninsula was hit by a tropical storm that formed in the Malacca Strait was in 2017, although the deluge was largely limited to Penang.

As floods ease in Thailand for first time in a week, Malaysia braces for new deluge

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Thai rescuers struggle to reach communities outside urban areas as swathes of Thailand’s south and Malaysia’s north remain under water

Thai rescuers struggle to reach communities outside urban areas as swathes of Thailand’s south and Malaysia’s north remain under water