PHITSANULOK: : Water in the Yom River in Phitsanulok's Bang Rakam district has continued to rise and is starting to flow into communities along the river banks.
PREPARED: Villagers in Phichit province rush to buy fibreglass boats after heavy rains and northern run-off caused flooding in many districts.
Pak Klong Talad community in Bang Rakam municipality and Ban Wang Klum village in tambon Bang Rakam are the hardest-hit areas.
The Yom River yesterday morning overflowed its banks and flooded the two areas with about 50cm of water.
Hundreds of villagers were forced to move their assets and livestock to higher ground on Phitsanulok-Bang Rakam Road.
They set up makeshift tents on the road to spend the night and wait for the flood water to recede.
Saiyud Nakplad, a Ban Wang Klum villager, said the water in the Yom River has been rising since Wednesday and started overflowing yesterday morning.
Mr Saiyud said the abrupt flooding forced him to evacuate his family to Phitsanulok-Bang Rakam Road.
Bandit In-ta, director of Phitsanulok Irrigation Project, said the water level in the Yom River was measured at 8.49m yesterday. It had increased by five centimetres from Friday.
Mr Bandit said the agency yesterday increased the draining of floodwater in Bang Rakam through canals to the Nan River. About 50,000 rai of farmland was affected by the flooding.
He said the volume of floodwater in the municipality this year was no worse than last year.
In Sa Kaeo and Prachin Buri, floodwater has started to recede after heavy rains stopped yesterday.
Continuous heavy rains since Tuesday had triggered flash floods and water run-off in five districts of Sa Kaeo and five districts of Prachin Buri.
Thousands of families have been badly affected by the floods. Several roads and bridges were also damaged.
The Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department reported yesterday that 14 provinces have been flooded this year.
They are Sa Kaeo, Prachin Buri, Nakhon Pathom, Sukhothai, Phitsanulok, Nakhon Sawan, Suphan Buri, Ang Thong, Ayutthaya, Uttaradit, Chaiyaphum, Pichit, Nakhon Nayok and Tak. Almost 70,000 people have been affected by the flooding.
In Bangkok, about 400 inmates were yesterday sent to dredge drainage pipes on several roads such as Sukhumvit, Si Ayutthaya and Phahon Yothin.
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and the Royal Irrigation Department held a joint meeting yesterday to discuss urgent measures to prevent flooding in Bangkok after continued heavy rains hit the capital over the past few days.
Deputy Bangkok Governor Wallop Suwandee, who chaired the meeting, said the irrigation department had agreed to set up more water pumping machinery at several canals in the eastern areas of Bangkok to speed up the drainage of floodwater into the Gulf of Thailand.