(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
AFP
Kuala Lumpur: Flooding in northern Malaysia and southern Thailand has killed at least eight people and forced tens of thousands from their homes, officials in both countries said on Friday.
More than 80,000 people were evacuated to 467 temporary shelters in Malaysia this week, with four deaths recorded across the northern states of Kelantan, Terengganu and Sarawak, according to disaster officials.
Floods in neighbouring Thailand killed two people in Pattani province and two in Songkhla province, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said on its Facebook page.
More than 240,000 households in southern Thailand have been affected by the flooding, it said, following days of heavy rain.
Images from Pattani showed knee-high waters lapping at shuttered shopfronts and a rescue team evacuating some residents by boat.
A resident looks through belongings floating in flood waters inside her home following heavy rain in Thailand's southern province of Narathiwat on November 28, 2024. Photo by Madaree TOHLALA / AFP
"The flood level is high, so it's impossible to move our belongings elsewhere," one resident in Pattani told Thai broadcaster PBS.
"We have to sacrifice them."
Malaysia's National Disaster Command Centre said it had mobilised a team to aid rescue operations in affected states.
The weather offices of both countries have forecast heavy rain until at least Saturday.
Floods are an annual phenomenon in Malaysia and southern Thailand.
Malaysia Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Thursday that the floods were "expected to be more severe than in 2014" -- when about 118,000 people fled their homes -- according to the official Bernama news agency.
Thousands of emergency services personnel have been deployed in flood-prone states along with rescue boats, four-wheel-drive vehicles and helicopters, Zahid, who chairs the National Disaster Management Committee, was also quoted as saying.
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