Dead number caused by the storm in Thailand rises to 31

Dthe total deaths, 12 occurred in the capital and its metropolitan region, while 19 other deaths were recorded in six provinces of the center and east of the country, according to the latest report of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, linked to the Ministry of Interior.

Since September 16, when the heavy rains began, a total of 4,141,546 people were affected by this atypical storm.

Although the water has already gone down in most of the streets of the capital, the floods continue to hinder people's lives in some areas of Bangkok and in 26 other provinces, mainly in the central region of the country.

At the peak of the rains, 300 millimeters of precipitation (about 30 million cubic meters of water) fell on Bangkok in 48 hours, an amount equivalent to the rain that the capital usually receives throughout the month of September, one of the traditionally rainyest.

Today, according to the local newspaper “Bangkok Post”, the capital authorities are working to speed up drainage operations in the eastern areas of Thai megacity, in the face of the heavy rains planned for the weekend.

With about nine million inhabitants in its municipal territory and over 15 million in the metropolitan region, Bangkok is especially vulnerable to floods during heavy rainfall due to factors such as its location in the Chao Phraya delta, about a metre and a half above sea level, and the historic overexploitation of underground aquifers, which contributed to the sinking of the metropolis' soil.

Thailand suffered, in 2011, one of the worst floods in its history, caused by a season of exceptionally rainy monsoons and several tropical storms that caused more than 800 deaths and affected about 13 million people, according to the World Bank.