Communities along the Yom River in Sukhothai were flooded with up to two metres of water on Monday after a dyke was damaged by strong currents following heavy rain upstream.
The flooding saw houses in Si Samrong, Si Satchanalai and Muang districts inundated by water as high as a single-storey house, forcing residents to seek safety on higher ground.
The torrents of water from Nan and Phrae tore down a 50-metre concrete dyke on Sunday. More sections of the dyke were damaged on Monday, worsening the floods in several areas.
The flooding brought down 20 electricity poles along Pak Kwair-Wang Mai Khon Road in Muang district, forcing Sukhothai's Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) to cut off power to several parts of Muang district and hampering search and rescue efforts.
Sukhothai has become the latest casualty of the floods which have ravaged 10 provinces since last week. The floods were brought rain from by Tropical Storm Higos, which wreaked havoc in Nan and Phrae as it made its way through the North.
So far, severe floods have been reported in 553 villages across 10 northern provinces, according to the official tally kept by the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department under the Interior Ministry.
However, authorities fear that more floods will be reported as the storm slowly moves towards Laos.
Excess water from Nan and Phrae is expected to flow downstream for the next seven days. As such, there have been flood warnings in Sukhothai, Phitsanulok and Phichit.
In Phichit, irrigation officials are bracing for a surge of water which is expected to flow down the Yom River in the next couple of days.
Sluice gates along the Yom River have been fully raised to allow the Royal Irrigation Department to divert overflowing water from the river into its tributaries and canals, said the head of Phichit's Irrigation Department, Amnart Inthawongkaew, on Monday.
In another development, rising water levels along the Mekong River in Nakhon Phanom are threatening local farms and fisheries along the river.
Water levels along the Mekong have been rising at a rate of 20-30 centimetres per day. As of Monday, the level stood at 9 metres -- just 4m below the spill-over threshold -- prompting officials to warn villagers in Ban Phaeng, Tha Uthen, Muang and That Phanom districts to secure their belongings.