By Chayut Setboonsarng and Ashley Tang
BANGKOK/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -Thailand was preparing on Tuesday to send an aircraft carrier with relief supplies and medical teams to its south, where more heavy rain intensified the worst floods in years, which have killed 13 people and hobbled rescue and evacuation efforts.
Floodwaters running as high as 2 m (6.6 ft) in some areas have hit nine Thai provinces and eight states in neighbouring Malaysia, across a swathe of hundreds of kilometres devastated last year by seasonal monsoon floods that killed 12.
The Thai navy said it was readying to send a flotilla of 14 boats and the aircraft carrier, Chakri Naruebet, accompanied by helicopters, doctors, supplies and field kitchens that can supply 3,000 meals a day.
“The fleet is ready to deliver forces and carry out actions as the Royal Navy orders,” it said in a statement, adding that the carrier could also serve as a floating hospital.
An estimated 1.9 million people have been affected in Thailand, where the meteorology agency forecast sustained heavy rain and flash floods on Tuesday and warned small boats to stay ashore to avoid waves taller than 3 metres (10 ft).
“Calls have been coming in non-stop in the last three days, in the thousands, asking to be evacuated and others for food,” said a member of volunteer group the Matchima Rescue Center in the worst affected city of Hat Yai.
The rubber trading centre is Thailand’s fifth largest city, where authorities have ordered evacuation after days of rain that Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said had brought the worst flooding in 15 years.
NO PHONES, RICE OR DRINKING WATER
“We are five people and a small child without rice and water,” Facebook user The Hong Tep posted in an appeal for help on the Matchima group’s page. “Phone reception has been cut – water is rising fast.”
Hat Yai, also popular with Malaysian visitors, received 335 mm (13 inches) of rain on Friday, its highest in a single day in three centuries.
Television images showed brown waters rushing through its commercial streets, while residents waded through high waters, clinging to floating polystyrene boxes as rubber boats evacuated others in orange life vests.
The waters submerged cars and flowed around a fire truck abandoned in a street.
In Malaysia, more than 18,500 people moved from flooded areas to 126 evacuation centres set up mainly in northern border areas.
In the state of Perlis, rescue teams waded through knee-high water to enter homes, while rescue boats ferried the elderly to safety, images from its fire department showed.
‘DIFFICULT AND CHALLENGING TIME’
A team of rescuers sent to the worst-hit state of Kelantan bordering Thailand could fan out to other states if needed, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Facebook.
“Family safety must be the priority,” he said, ordering authorities to provide maximum support to affected communities, whom he asked to comply with orders to evacuate.
“In this difficult and challenging time, I pray that all flood victims are granted strength, resilience, and protected from any harm.”
The floods could wreak disruption in Thailand’s rubber industry, among the world’s largest producers and exporters of the commodity, where the government rubber agency has estimated the rains could cut output by about 10,300 tons.
Posts from stranded people desperate for help ran into the thousands on the Facebook page of Hat Yai’s Matchima rescue group.
“Water is on the second floor now,” wrote one of them, Pingojung Ping, who said she was one of six trapped, two elderly people among them. “Pray. Please help.”
(Reporting by Chayut Seotboonsarng and Panarat Thepgumpanat in Bangkok and Ashley Tang in Kuala Lumpur; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
