Deaths from Thai flooding pass 600

THE DEATH toll from Thailand’s worst flooding in 70 years has passed 600 and the government has revised its economic growth forecasts downwards as it grapples with the effects of the monsoon-borne deluge.

Residents in the outskirts of the capital are still up to their waists in water, which authorities have warned will go on for weeks. Meanwhile, a clean-up operation has begun in many parts of the city.

More than two-thirds of the country’s 77 provinces have been affected by floods since late July.

Thailand’s economy may shrink 3.7 per cent this quarter because of the flooding.

Prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has faced criticism for her handling of the flooding, but so far complaints have not turned into something more politically explosive from rival political parties.

Yesterday she came under pressure to give special compensation to people living in the outskirts of the city, whose communities have been kept flooded in order to protect the central business district.

Ms Yingluck stood firm and threw out a proposal by the government’s flood relief operation command that the government should give extra payments to residents trapped behind dykes in Pathum Thani, Nonthaburi and Nakhon Pathom provinces, and in some suburban areas of Bangkok.

“All areas are in the same trouble. I sympathise with them and I am trying to offer adequate assistance,” she was quoted as saying in the Bangkok Post.

“As for rehabilitation in deeply flooded areas, ministers have been assigned to help flood victims in the field and I am sure that the assistance will be adequate.”

Meanwhile, the government seems to have backed away from proposals to give amnesty to Ms Yingluck’s brother, the exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, after public outrage over his possible return.

A planned amnesty was agreed by cabinet last Tuesday, local media said, but ministers and Mr Thaksin refused to confirm it.

Opposition politicians and activists were furious at what they said was an attempt by a Thaksin-allied government to clear the billionaire of his criminal conviction and two-year jail term for abuse of power.

Mr Thaksin never spent time in jail and lives in Dubai. He insists his conviction on corruption charges was politically motivated. 

Ms Yingluck’s administration has been dogged by accusations it is influenced by Mr Thaksin and is full of his allies.