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‘Once in 300 years’ rain hits Thai city as floods ravage South East Asia
Parts of Thailand are battling record floods, which have killed at least 33 people and prompted authorities to deploy military ships and helicopters to support relief efforts.
The deluge has hit 10 provinces across the country’s south over the past week, with the city of Hat Yai, a business hub bordering Malaysia, recording its heaviest rainfall in 300 years – 335mm in a single day.
Photos show vehicles and houses submerged in the city, while desperate residents await rescue on their rooftops.
Relentless rains have also ravaged neighbouring countries. In Vietnam, the death toll has risen to 98 in a week, while in Malaysia, more than 19,000 people have been forced from their homes.
In Indonesia, at least 19 people have been killed and at least seven others remained buried under landslides in North Sumatra, according to the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency.
More than 2 million people in Thailand have been affected by the floods, but just 13,000 have been moved to shelters.
The vast majority are cut off and unable to get help, according to Reuters news agency.
The Thai military, which has been put in charge of tackling the crisis, said it is preparing to dispatch an aircraft carrier and a flotilla of 14 boats loaded with relief supplies, along with field kitchens that are said to be able to deliver 3,000 meals a day.
Medical teams on board the aircraft carrier will convert it into a “floating hospital” if required, the navy said.
Boats, high-clearance trucks, and jet skis have also been deployed to evacuate residents, said the governor of Songkhla province, where Hat Yai is located.
The cabinet on Tuesday declared Songkhla a disaster zone, freeing up funds for relief.
However, many people remain stranded amid the rising waters.
A volunteer rescue group, the Matchima Rescue Center, told Reuters it had been inundated with thousands of calls in the last three days, with people asking to be evacuated.
People have also posted urgent calls for help on Matchima’s Facebook page. “Many people are trapped… Please help,” one user wrote. “It’s very difficult right now. The water has reached the second floor, where there are children, the elderly, the sick, and the disabled!!!”
Another wrote that his household had been waiting for help for three days: “Every second is crucial now… Please help share. My [phone’s] battery is at 40%. Thank you everyone.”
Some also wrote about not having had any food and water for days.
A clip that has gone viral on social media shows three young boys hanging from power lines, trying to inch their way to safety while brown murky waters continue to rise below them.
In Malaysia, more than 19,000 people have been evacuated to safety, with 126 evacuation centres set up in the northern border areas.
In the states of Kelantan and Perlis, rescue teams waded through knee-deep floodwaters to evacuate residents in areas where rising waters had cut off access to roads.
Heavy seasonal rain is common around this time of year in South East Asia, but this year has seen exceptionally high levels of flooding in the region.
[BBC]
Donald Trump has urged the UK and other nations to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz to help secure the key shipping route out of the Middle East.
The US president said he hoped China, France, Japan and South Korea would also send ships to the passage, where a number of tankers are said to have been attacked since the US and Israel mounted their war against Iran a fortnight ago.
Responding to Trump’s comments, the UK Ministry of Defence said it was discussing “a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region” with allies.
Tehran has said it will keep blocking the strait – the world’s busiest oil shipping channel through which about 20% of world oil supplies usually pass.
Its effective closure, as well as strikes on shipping and energy infrastructure since the war started, has led to huge rise in global oil prices.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that “many countries” would be sending warships in conjunction with the US to help keep the strait “open and safe”.
He claimed “100% of Iran’s military capability” had already been destroyed, but that Tehran could still “send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this waterway”.
“Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated.”
He added: “In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!”
Trump repeated his appeal in a post later on Saturday – extending it to all “the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait” – and said the US would provide “a lot” of support to those who participated.
The president has separately threatened to target Iran’s vital oil infrastructure on Kharg Island if its leadership were to “interfere” with ships seeking to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
He said the US had ‘obliterated” military targets on the small island off Iran’s coast on Friday, calling it “one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East”.
Iran’s military said oil and energy infrastructure belonging to firms working with the US would “immediately be destroyed” should the island’s oil infrastructure be attacked.
Tehran has been stepping up such attacks on energy targets in the Gulf, which have become a key element of its response to US and Israeli strikes. It warned on Thursday that any tanker bound for the US, Israel or its partners was a legitimate target.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said in its latest update on 12 March that 16 ships were reported to have been attacked in and around the strait since the war began on 28 February.
Currently, not even the US Navy is escorting tankers through the narrow shipping lane.
Trump’s message came a week after he said the US did not need the UK to send aircraft carriers to the region and accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of seeking to ‘join wars after we’ve already won”.
He also told the BBC’s US partner CBS that he “couldn’t care less” whether allies could do more to assist with the war, adding: “It’s a little bit late to be sending ships, right? A little bit late.”
He had already criticised Sir Keir for not joining the initial strikes on Iran and refusing at first to allow the US to use UK bases for its joint offensive with Israel – calling him ‘no Winston Churchill”.
The prime minister later approved “defensive” US action on Iranian missile sites from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, saying Iran’s response had become a threat to Britain.
The UK’s first and only warship set to be present in the region – the Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon – departed for Cyprus on Tuesday, where it will bolster RAF Akrotiri after it was hit by drone strikes.
The Royal Navy used to keep minesweepers based in Bahrain, but no longer has that capability after it withdrew HMS Middleton.
Ministers have insisted the UK built up an RAF presence in the region before the conflict, with the aim of protecting British military personnel.
[BBC]
Salman Ali Agha said that he would have done things ‘differently”, after Mehidy Hasan Miraz ran him out in controversial circumstances in the second ODI in Dhaka.
Agha, who made 64 from 62 balls, had been backing up at the non-striker’s end when Mohammad Rizwan drove the ball back towards him. He was still out of his ground as Mehidy swooped round behind him in an attempt to gather, and Agha had appeared ready to pass the ball back to the bowler before Mehidy reached down to grab it first and throw down the stumps.
Agha reacted furiously to the dismissal, throwing his gloves and helmet down in disgust at the decision. However, he later came to the post-match press conference, ahead of captain Shaheen Shah Afridi and player of the match Maaz Sadaqat, to clear the air.
“I think sportsman spirit has to be there,” Agha said. “What he [Mehidy] has done is in the law. I think if he thinks it’s right, it’s right, but if you ask me my perspective, I would have done differently. I would have gone for sportsman spirit. We haven’t done this [type of thing] previously, we would never do that in the future as well.”
Agha explained that he had been trying to pick up the ball to give to Miraz, thinking it was likely to have been called dead. “Actually, the ball hit on my pad and then my bat,” he said. “So I thought he can’t get me run-out now, because the ball already hit on my pad and my bat.
“I was just trying to give him the ball back. I was not looking for the run or anything like that, but he already decided [to make the run-out].”
Agha however regretted his angry reaction. “It was just heat-of-the-moment kind of stuff,” he said. “If you ask me what would I have done, I would have done things differently. But it was everything, whatever happened after that, it was in the moment.”
He was also involved in a robust exchange with Bangladesh wicketkeeper Litton Das, though he didn’t divulge many of the details.
“I can’t remember what I was saying and I can’t remember what he was saying,” he said. “I’m sure I wasn’t saying nice things, and I’m sure he wasn’t saying nice stuff as well. But it was just heat of the moment, so we are fine.
Asked if he had patched things up with Mehidy, Agha said: “I haven’t yet, but don’t worry, I’ll find him.”
Pakistan won the match by 128 runs via the DLS method.
[Cricinfo]
Latest News
US embassy in Baghdad hit by strike as Trump says military targets ‘obliterated’ on Iran’s key oil island
The US embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, has been hit by a missile – video shows fire and smoke rising in the aftermath.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump says “every military target” on Iran’s key oil island has been “totally obliterated”, but there was no damage to oil infrastructure.
Kharg Island is a tiny but strategic terminal in the northern Gulf, 22 miles off the coast of Iran In response, Tehran warns oil and energy infrastructure belonging to firms that co-operate with the US will be “turned into a pile of ashes” if Iran’s energy facilities are attacked
Elsewhere in the Middle East: Israel and Iran both warn of fresh attacks, and at least 12 medical staff have been killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon
Meanwhile, more US Marines and warships are expected to be deployed to the Middle East, two officials tell BBC’s partner CBS News
[BBC]
Trump urges UK and other nations to send warships to Strait of Hormuz
Addressing the drug issue in the country must be treated as a national priority – PM
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Lanka discovers largest groundwater source
Lanka’s commercial legacy preserved in National Archives
Bodies of 84 Iranian sailors flown home
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