Bangkok city authorities declared a state of disaster in all 50 districts of the capital on Saturday due to flooding caused by heavy rains.
This declaration, which allows local authorities to take emergency measures, comes as nearly 300 millimeters of rain have fallen in the Thai capital since Thursday, according to Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt.
“The water keeps rising. It’s hard to go out now. It comes to my waist,” Somkid Pheuk-ngam, a 67-year-old saleswoman who lives near a canal near the center, told AFP.
“I can’t go anywhere. I closed my shop for two days,” she added, estimating that she had not seen such floods in the city for fifteen years.
Rain has been falling almost continuously since Thursday afternoon, flooding the roads, swelling Bangkok’s canals and seeping into the many buildings that line them.
According to the governor, the most affected part is the east of the city. “It’s still raining and we’re doing our best. We are trying to pump the water, but the canals are full,” he told reporters.
He encouraged patients bedridden at home and dependent on vital medical equipment to consider a temporary stay in hospital.
In 2011, major floods across Thailand killed more than 500 people and damaged millions of homes.
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