තායිලන්තයේ පළාත් 20කට ගංවතුර තත්ත්වයක්

Flash floods swamp Thailand’s Chiang Mai

Flash floods on Saturday swamped Thailand's northern city of Chiang Mai, a popular tourist destination, forcing stores and markets to suspend operation and disrupting the supply of drinking water and electricity.

The floods caused by days of frequent heavy rains have inundated 20 provinces in northern, northeastern, central and southern Thailand, with 1,556 villages in 65 regions overwhelmed and 66,000 households affected, according to the latest report released by the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) under the Ministry of Interior (MOI).

The disaster also caused severe waterlogging in Chiang Mai on Saturday, with the deepest water level once reaching about 1.5 meters in the downtown area.

So far, traffic in the city has returned to normal as the floods have receded, while the severe waterlogging is still affecting people living in the low-lying areas in the suburbs.

Residents were forced to wade through floodwaters and use homemade tools to transport supplies from their homes.

To prevent floods from flowing backward, people have piled up sandbags in front of houses, and some are using pumps to drain away the floodwaters.

"The water is still rising here. We can gradually start cleanup or doing interior cleaning when it goes down," said a local resident.

The floods also trapped more than 100 Chinese tourists in Chiang Mai, but now all of them have been evacuated to safety, according to the Consulate General of China in Chiang Mai.

As of Tuesday, the floodwaters and mud brought by the floods had resulted in the business suspension of many shops and markets in Chiang Mai. And some residents could not return to their homes.

At present, drinking water and electricity supply has still been cut off in some areas.

In low-lying areas, alluvial sediment like mud and garbage remain on the road. Local people are seen cleaning up shops and houses, aiming to restore production and life to normalcy as soon as possible.

"It will take about two weeks for us to resume business, as there is a lot of floodwater in stores and we need to clean them, after which everything will be back to normal in less than two weeks," said a merchant.

Local authorities have mobilized military personnel, watering carts and excavators to start a major cleanup in downtown Chiang Mai.

"We'll first clean the roads, wash the dirt off the streets, then disinfect the roads, and clean up the garbage and the bacteria it brings," said a local official of Phaya Mengrai district, Chiang Mai.

As residents in some disaster-stricken areas have difficulty in getting basic necessities, township governments have set up relief stations to provide them with daily supplies such as food, drinking water, and medicine.

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