Thai authorities have ordered a new evacuation of an industrial park north of the nation's capital Bangkok, as the economic impact of ongoing floods worsened.
The move at the Nava Nakorn industrial estate in Pathum Thani is a big blow for several major companies with operations there, including Casio, Seiko, Nestle and Toshiba.
The hardest-hit firms were Honda and Toyota, which use Thailand is a major production base.
Both have been forced to stop all work there due to flooding of their facilities.
The evacuation order, which was made in a live television broadcast from the Flood Relief Operation Centre, came after water burst through one of several protective walls hurriedly constructed in the past few days.
The flood centre's spokesman Wim Rungwattanajinda said 200 buses and trucks were mobilised to take evacuated workers to emergency shelters, including a huge temple complex that could house as many as 5,000.
At least four other major industrial parks have been inundated, leaving upward of 100,000 workers idle and disrupting supply chains, especially in the automotive and electronic industries.
The Labour Ministry said more than 260,000 people had lost jobs and 6,533 businesses nationwide had to close due to floods between October 10 and 12.
Thailand's Central Bank last week estimated the total cost of the floods could be 100bn baht (£2bn).
The nationwide death toll rose to 307, mostly from drowning. Outside the capital, thousands of people remain displaced and hungry residents were struggling to survive in half-submerged towns.
On Sunday, the military rescued people from the rooftops of flooded buildings in the swamped city of Ayutthaya, one of the country's hardest-hit.
At the same time, officials were expressing growing optimism that Bangkok would be spared thanks to the city's complex system of flood walls, canals, dykes and underground tunnels that help divert vast pools of runoff south into the Gulf of Thailand.
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