At least eight people have died and tens of thousands more have been forced from their homes due to floods hitting northern Malaysia and southern Thailand, authorities in both countries said on Friday.
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More than 80,000 people have been evacuated to 467 temporary shelters in Malaysia this week, rescue services said, with four deaths reported in the northern states of Kelantan, Terengganu and Sarawak.
In neighboring Thailand, floods claimed four lives, two in Pattani province and two in Songkhla province, the National Disaster Management Center said on Facebook.
More than 240,000 homes are affected in southern Thailand after several days of intense rain, according to the same source.
In Pattani, images showed closed businesses struggling with knee-deep water, while rescue teams evacuated residents by boat.
“The water level is so high that it is impossible to move our belongings elsewhere,” a Pattani resident told public broadcaster PBS. We must abandon them.”
Malaysia’s National Disaster Management Center said it has mobilized a team to support relief operations in affected states.
Meteorological services in both countries predict heavy rainfall at least until Saturday.
These floods are an annual phenomenon in Malaysia and southern Thailand.
The scale of the floods should be “greater than in 2014”, the year when around 118,000 people had to flee their homes, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi warned on Thursday, quoted by the official Bernama news agency. .
Thousands of rescue workers have been deployed to flood-prone states, with rescue boats, all-terrain vehicles and helicopters, said Ahmad Zahid, who chairs the National Disaster Management Committee.
