AP file photo
The death toll from severe flooding in southern Thailand has risen to over 80 as waters began to recede on Thursday, officials said. Torrential rains have affected more than 3 million people across 12 provinces, impacting around 1 million households, the department of disaster prevention and mitigation reported.Rescue teams deployed drones to deliver aid, while helicopters airlifted supplies to residents stranded on rooftops.The extreme weather has also hit Indonesia’s Sumatra island, where landslides and floods have disrupted life across three provinces, leaving communities isolated and prompting urgent rescue operations.Flooding that began over the weekend has inundated large areas and caused fatalities across Nakhon Si Thammarat, Pattalung, Songkhla, Trang, Satun, Pattani, and Yala provinces.By Thursday morning, water levels had receded in many areas, though some regions, including Pattani and Nakhon Si Thammarat, remained heavily flooded.Government spokesperson Siripong Angkasakulkiat told a news conference in Bangkok that deaths in Songkhla province alone rose from six to 55 on Thursday, bringing the total fatalities across the seven provinces to at least 82, as cited by AP. “Efforts to assist the public are continuing, but the flooding situation will be a long fight,” Thai government spokesperson Siripong Angkasakulkiat was quoted as saying by Reuters. Across the border in Malaysia, similar floods have claimed two lives and forced over 34,000 people into temporary shelters across seven states.Meanwhile, on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, a tropical cyclone unleashed deadly floods and landslides, leaving at least 100 people missing as rescue efforts were hindered by power outages and damaged infrastructure.Images from West Sumatra showed responders carrying bodies through deep mud, while cars lay crumpled and stacked after being swept away by surging floodwaters, as cited by Reuters.Meteorologists say the extreme weather across Southeast Asia may be linked to the interaction of two active systems, Typhoon Koto in the Philippines and the unusual formation of Cyclone Senyar in the Malacca Strait.