South Thailand Hit By Worst Rain in 300 Years

[PeterRS]

Reports indicate that the south of the country has been hit by its worst rainfall in 300 years. Ten Provinces have been hit with the city of Hat Yai being the worst. It experienced 335 mm in a single day. Desperate residents are perched on rooftops. More than 2 million peope have been affected.  Military ships including an aircraft carrier with supplies, a flotilla of boats and rescue helicopters have been mobiised to help residents. 33 have aleady died.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg97wx144jo

Hat Yai: photo Weerapong Narongkul Bangkok Post

[Keithambrose]

2 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Reports indicate that the south of the country has been hit by its worst rainfall in 300 years. Ten Provinces have been hit with the city of Hat Yai being the worst. It experienced 335 mm in a single day. Desperate residents are perched on rooftops. More than 2 million peope have been affected.  Military ships including an aircraft carrier with supplies, a flotilla of boats and rescue helicopters have been mobiised to help residents. 33 have aleady died.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg97wx144jo

Hat Yai: photo Weerapong Narongkul Bangkok Post

I took off from Suvarnabhumi on Monday, and after about 5 mins, all you could see was flooding everywhere,  it went on for many miles, roads disappeared,  isolated patches of high  ground. Odd houses, otherwise just water. 

[llz]

Five minutes after taking off from Suwannaphum, you were not flying above Hat Yai for sure.

What you saw was the Central plains where the situation on the ground is now much less critical than it seems when looking from above. 

 

[PeterRS]

3 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

I took off from Suvarnabhumi on Monday, and after about 5 mins, all you could see was flooding everywhere,  it went on for many miles, roads disappeared,  isolated patches of high  ground. Odd houses, otherwise just water. 

Agree with @llz. Unless you were flying due south for at least 30 minutes, it would have been impossible to see the flooding in the south. To the north of Bangkok there is a much lesser degree of flooding after the Chao Phraya dischage rate was increased. Even though that took place three months ago, some parts of Ayutthaya Province remain under some water.

[khaolakguy]

Truly dreadful floods in the south. The video gives a sense of the scale.

https://youtu.be/9UiqmID9dxM

 

[mauRICE]

These photos were taken by friends who live or are on holiday in Hatyai. My family home and farm are only a two-hour drive away but we're on high ground. The flooding has been going on for five consecutive days affecting 690,000 people in Hatyai alone but Anutin only woke up to the magnitude of this disaster yesterday. Meanwhile, volunteer rescue missions from Malaysia and Singapore have been going in since last Sunday.

The upcoming SEA Games events that  have been scheduled in Songkhla will likely be relocated to Bangkok and Chonburi.

Here's a sample of the kind of messages I've been receiving from friends stranded there. The last bit reads like an excerpt from Anne Frank.

23.28 น. ตอนนี้ก็ยังนั่งอยู่ที่บ้าน รอเรืออพยพ พร้อมๆกับเพื่อนบ้านทั้งซอย11/1และซ.12ที่รอคอยกันอย่างมีความหวังว่ามีเรือมาช่วย โดยเฉพาะซ.12 ที่แม้กระทั่งเสียงเป่านกหวีดขอความช่วยเหลือยังดังแบบระโหยโรยแรง คนเป่าคงหมดแรง ตอนนี้ทุกคนในซอยไม่มีใครกล้านอนสักคน คอยเงี่ยหูฟังเสียงเรือกันทุกบ้าน สลับกันตื่นมาสอดส่อง ตอนนี้ระดับน้ำอยู่ที่ขั้นบันไดเหลืออีก5ขั้นจะขึ้นถึงชั้น2 ยังรอคอยกันต่อไป 

11:28 PM. I'm still sitting at home, waiting for the evacuation boat, along with neighbors in both Soi 11/1 and Soi 12, who are all waiting with hope for a boat to arrive. In Soi 12, especially, even the whistle for help is becoming faint. The whistler must be exhausted. No one in the alley dares to sleep. Everyone is listening carefully for the boat's sound, taking turns waking up to keep an eye out. The water level is now at the top of the stairs, with five steps left to reach the second floor. We're still waiting.

[PeterRS]

7 hours ago, khaolakguy said:

Truly dreadful floods in the south. The video gives a sense of the scale.

https://youtu.be/9UiqmID9dxM

 

That vdo is absolutely horrible. My heart goes out to all whose homes have been flooded and familes who have lost loved ones. I have a Thai friend whose home was flooded for 3 months during the massive flooding in parts of Bangkok in 2011. It took weeks afterwards to render his ground floor habitable again. 13.6 million people were affected by those floods.

[jimmie50]

So terrible.  Cannot believe this is the second year in a row they have had to endure such horrible conditions.  Devastating.  

[floridarob]

A few degrees of warming doesn’t sound like much, but in the ocean it’s catastrophic — warmer water holds less oxygen, fuels massive algal blooms, and creates over 500 growing ‘dead zones’ where nothing can survive. Oceans absorb 90% of the excess heat we create, and even a 1–2°C rise collapses ecosystems. The Earth will eventually adapt and reset, but humans won’t. The planet isn’t dying — we are 🥺
 

[mauRICE]

21 minutes ago, floridarob said:

The planet isn’t dying — we are 🥺
 

But thanks to Pattaya, the dead live again! 

[vinapu]

9 hours ago, floridarob said:

The planet isn’t dying — we are 🥺
 

we do, even without global warming

[mauRICE]

On 11/27/2025 at 1:27 AM, mauRICE said:

These photos were taken by friends who live or are on holiday in Hatyai. My family home and farm are only a two-hour drive away but we're on high ground. The flooding has been going on for five consecutive days affecting 690,000 people in Hatyai alone but Anutin only woke up to the magnitude of this disaster yesterday. Meanwhile, volunteer rescue missions from Malaysia and Singapore have been going in since last Sunday.

The upcoming SEA Games events that  have been scheduled in Songkhla will likely be relocated to Bangkok and Chonburi.

Here's a sample of the kind of messages I've been receiving from friends stranded there. The last bit reads like an excerpt from Anne Frank.

23.28 น. ตอนนี้ก็ยังนั่งอยู่ที่บ้าน รอเรืออพยพ พร้อมๆกับเพื่อนบ้านทั้งซอย11/1และซ.12ที่รอคอยกันอย่างมีความหวังว่ามีเรือมาช่วย โดยเฉพาะซ.12 ที่แม้กระทั่งเสียงเป่านกหวีดขอความช่วยเหลือยังดังแบบระโหยโรยแรง คนเป่าคงหมดแรง ตอนนี้ทุกคนในซอยไม่มีใครกล้านอนสักคน คอยเงี่ยหูฟังเสียงเรือกันทุกบ้าน สลับกันตื่นมาสอดส่อง ตอนนี้ระดับน้ำอยู่ที่ขั้นบันไดเหลืออีก5ขั้นจะขึ้นถึงชั้น2 ยังรอคอยกันต่อไป 

11:28 PM. I'm still sitting at home, waiting for the evacuation boat, along with neighbors in both Soi 11/1 and Soi 12, who are all waiting with hope for a boat to arrive. In Soi 12, especially, even the whistle for help is becoming faint. The whistler must be exhausted. No one in the alley dares to sleep. Everyone is listening carefully for the boat's sound, taking turns waking up to keep an eye out. The water level is now at the top of the stairs, with five steps left to reach the second floor. We're still waiting.

Some good news. My friend and her elderly father have been rescued and taken to a shelter. Both are fine. But many others are waiting to be rescued or for supplies. Every life is precious and I can't imagine the toll this disaster has taken on the livestock, pets and strays. 

[vinapu]

7 hours ago, mauRICE said:

 I can't imagine the toll this disaster has taken on the livestock, pets and strays. 

strays are in the best position to escape  as likely they are not tied to anything and their instinct told them to run away

[PeterRS]

Rainfall in the south of Thailand is far from uncommon even into the middle of December. I recall a 5 night stay in Phuket in mid-December 1996 when it poured with rain every day.

[mauRICE]

Some pictures of my friend's cosmetics shop in central Hatyai after the flood. It's completely destroyed, including stocks stored in the shop. She and her family have worked very hard to establish the business. Her home several kilometres away is also badly damaged and inhabitable at the moment. They've got insurance and the capital to rebuild - which will take months - but many others don't. Small to medium enterprises like theirs have been among the hardest hit. November and December have traditionally been the busiest months in Hatyai being the Malaysian and Singaporean school holidays and now they've lost all potential business. Hopefully they'll be able to get something going by Chinese New Year in mid February next year.

The first pic was taken before the flood.

[floridarob]

When I moved out out Houston to Mexico, I had many of my belongings in a storage facility, Houston flooded and that's pretty much what all the storage places looked like.

I know the feeling of losing so much and the only insurance I had was a small policy provided by the storage facility, so a pretty big loss.....🥺

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, floridarob said:

When I moved out out Houston to Mexico, I had many of my belongings in a storage facility, Houston flooded and that's pretty much what all the storage places looked like.

I know the feeling of losing so much and the only insurance I had was a small policy provided by the storage facility, so a pretty big loss.....🥺

I wanted to say that nature helped you to dispose things you did not really need but decided not to as it would sound to cruel.

Lady above case is bit different as she seemed to lose her means of living  , at least for a while.

My grandparents lost their farm  to floods twice  in spam of 10 years ( 1960 and 1970) while I was vacationing there and I remember my wise Grandmother reflection surveying the looses after 2nd flood  - "that's the price of living next to country's biggest river "   

[fedssocr]

it's all very sad. I didn't realize that Hat Yai is below sea level.

Large parts of Sri Lanka under water at the moment too and Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines with major floods too