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Thailand Fights To Channel Bangkok Flood Waters


Residents push their dogs and belongings in a make-shift container as they wade through a flooded street in Bangkok, Sunday, October 23, 2011.
Residents push their dogs and belongings in a make-shift container as they wade through a flooded street in Bangkok, Sunday, October 23, 2011.

Thailand's authorities are trying to channel the floodwaters through Bangkok canals in an effort to spare the city center as floods put more pressure on the barriers protecting the capital.

Flood waters continue to bear down on the Thai capital Bangkok. Early this morning, they pushed over a dike in a northwestern neighborhood, inundating a school there.

About half a meter of it is in some parts of the school. The Thai military was called in to try to reinforce some of the sandbags that had been put up in the area. About 300 soldiers took part in that effort. A Thai military solider in charge of the operation told VOA that they would do their best to try to prevent the waters from spreading further into the neighborhood and he thinks they have the situation under control.

But Thai authorities have said that 27 communities along the river should be evacuated and people should get their belongings to higher ground.

The Thai prime minister says that throughout seven districts in the capital, people should move their valuables and other things they do not want to be flooded up to higher levels, the second stories of their houses, or neighborhoods that are not expected to be flooded.

But there is still no indication how serious the flooding is going to be. All that is known is the government is saying that it could last for several weeks and that people in the capital should be prepared in case their neighborhood does have flooding.

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