(Bloomberg) -- Thailand is bracing for more tropical rainstorms after 22 people died in flash floods and landslides over the past week.
The flooding has affected more than 33,000 households in 13 provinces since Aug. 16, killing nine people, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said in a statement Tuesday. A further 13 people died in a landslide in Phuket last week, the department said. While floods have receded from their peak, about 10,000 households in four provinces remain affected.
A tropical depression is expected to strengthen through Wednesday, bringing more rain to northern, northeastern and southern provinces, the disaster mitigation agency said. Former leader Thaksin Shinawatra will travel to northern Chiang Rai province on Tuesday to visit affected areas, after Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra — his daughter — went to Nan province during the weekend to distribute relief goods.
Despite the likelihood of flooding in other major provinces, the current situation is expected to be less severe than it was in the 2011 disaster, UOB Kay Hian Securities (Thailand) Pcl analysts wrote in a note Tuesday. The current water dam capacity is significantly higher, and the storm forecast isn’t as bad as 13 years ago, they said.
The 2011 rains killed at least 800 people and resulted in estimated losses of more than $40 billion to Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy. The worst flooding in a generation submerged more than 10,000 factories, including those of Honda Motor Co. and Western Digital Corp.
The government hasn’t provided information on the cost of damage to farm output nor to infrastructure from this month’s calamity.
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