Thai PM Yingluck U-turns on Bangkok floods

Thailand’s prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has warned millions of residents in Thailand’s capital Bangkok to move their belongings to safety just one week after she reassured citizens that the water level was stable and not rising. 

Reuters/Damir Sagolj

The government has now admitted the sea of water bearing down on the capital from the central plains was unstoppable.

In a desperate attempt to drain the mass of muddy water, the authorities have opened all of Bangkok's sluice gates to allow the floods to flow through canals and rivers in the low-lying capital and into the Gulf of Thailand.

The move should ease pressure on vulnerable flood barriers on the northern edge of the city, but it increases the threat to Bangkok itself, where some outlying residential areas were flooded on Friday.

Three months of heavy monsoon rains have killed at least 342 people in Thailand and damaged the homes and livelihoods of millions of others, mostly in the north and centre.

And the waters are now seeping into the capital, leaving little doubt that large areas of the metropolis would be flooded although it is not known how deep the waters will be.

In the east of the capital, dykes were close to overflowing the city authorities said, reassuring residents they had evacuation plans ready if necessary.

The opposition is calling on the government to declare a state of emergency to make it easier to control people and prevent them damaging dykes to ease the flooding in their own areas, but Yingluck has ruled out such a move.

Yingluck, who is the sister of fugitive former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, is facing the first major crisis of her two-month-old leadership.