BANGKOK: Thai authorities on Friday warned of flash floods across the south as torrential rains lashed the region leaving at least eight people dead, delaying flights and disrupting holidays during peak tourist season.
Nine provinces along Thailand’s southern tail have been hit by unseasonal rains for nearly a week, with the resort islands of Samui and Phangan deluged, leaving thousands of tourists stranded or delayed.
Eight people have been killed and at least 120,000 households have been affected by the flooding across the south, the Interior Ministry said, where waters have turned roads into rivers and upended rail tracks.
Authorities fear worse may be to come. The Thai Meteorological Department warned residents and visitors to the south of possible “heavy rain and flash floods” with downpours expected to continue for two more days.
Photos circulating on social media showed cars and motorcyclists plying through muddy, waist-high waters.
A smattering of foreign tourists on Samui took advantage of the flooded streets, drawing bemused looks from locals as they bobbed along in inflatable tubes.
Tuula Fitzpatrick, the owner of Moby Dick guesthouse near Samui’s main party strip, said the flooding was the worst to hit the island in over a decade.
“I’ve been living here for 12 years and I’ve never seen it so bad... It was scary. Some of my staff couldn’t come to work,” she told AFP.
The island, a stalwart of Thailand’s cash-cow tourism industry, is a magnet for foreign visitors drawn by the promise of winter sun.
But under menacing skies tourists stayed inside hotels, while others checked out early or canceled bookings, according to a Thai tourism official on the island.
The worst flooding struck Nakhon Si Thammarat province on the mainland, where waters reached the roof-tops in some parts, closed the regional airport, cut the trainline and made roads impassable.
“The flood waters have hit the tracks and in some places the track was washed away,” said Thanongsak Kongprasert, deputy governor of the State Railway of Thailand.
Junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha briefly visited the southernmost province of Narathiwat to distribute flood relief.
Across the border in northern Malaysia more than 15,000 people remained stranded in relief centers after days of tropical downpours as thousands more headed home to survey the damage wreaked by the floods.
“The weatherman has predicted no more heavy rain. More relief centers are being closed but we remain on alert,” Amir Sarifudin, Terengganu state civil department force deputy director, told AFP.
Floods spark chaos in Thai south
Floods spark chaos in Thai south
Kosovo, Serbia ‘need to normalize’ relations
- Kosovo, which hopes to join NATO, has also been cultivating relations with Washington in recent months, by removing tariffs on American products
PRISTINA: Kosovo and Serbia need to “normalize” their relations, Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti said, several days before legislative elections where he is seeking to extend his term with more solid backing.
Kurti has been in office since 2021 and previous accords signed with Serbia — which does not recognize the independence of its former province — have yet to be respected.
“We need to normalize relations with Serbia,” said Kurti. “But normalizing relations with a neighboring authoritarian regime that doesn’t recognize you, that also doesn’t admit to the crimes committed during the war, is quite difficult,” he added.
Tensions between the two neighbors are regularly high.
“We do have a normalization agreement,” Kurti said, referring to the agreement signed under the auspices of the EU in 2023.
“We must implement it, which implies mutual recognition between the countries, at least de facto recognition.”
But to resume dialogue, Serbia “must hand over Milan Radoicic,” a Serb accused of plotting an attack in northern Kosovo in 2023, Kurti asserted, hoping that “the EU, France, and Germany will put pressure” on Belgrade to do so.
Kosovo, which hopes to join NATO, has also been cultivating relations with Washington in recent months, by removing tariffs on American products and agreeing to accept up to 50 migrants from third countries extradited by the US. So far, only one has arrived.
“We are not asking for any financial assistance in return,” Kurti emphasized. “We are doing this to help the US, which is a partner, an ally, a friend,” added the prime minister, who did not rule out making similar agreements with European countries.
Unable to secure enough seats in the February 2025 parliamentary elections, Kurti was forced to call early elections on Sunday, after 10 months of political deadlock during which the divided parliament failed to form a coalition.
“We need a decisive victory. In February, we won 42.3 percent, and this time we want to exceed 50 percent,” he said.
