Boats carry terrified children to safety in Thai floods

Rescuers in boats carried 60 schoolchildren to safety in the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai on Thursday after they were stranded by what residents said was the worst flood in decades.

The children, students at Samakkhi Witthayakhom School, spent a terrifying night trapped in a dormitory as the floodwaters, swollen by torrential rains from Typhoon Yagi, surged on Wednesday afternoon.

Millions of people across Southeast Asia are grappling with floods and landslides after Yagi barrelled through the region on Saturday, unleashing torrential rainfall that inundated northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.

One of the pupils trapped by the flood described the ordeal to AFP.

"I felt scared, because the flood rose so quickly that we didn't have time to prepare," the 18-year-old, who only wanted to be identified as Kraiwit, said.

"We were stuck there from yesterday afternoon at 3:00 pm until today. There were also nearby villagers who swam in to take shelter from the floodwaters, about 60 to 70 people."

Father Philip Pornchai, a Roman Catholic priest coordinating rescue efforts at the school, said the water had come up suddenly.

"We managed to evacuate around 800 children, but 60 were left behind," he told AFP.

Rescuers managed to retrieve the remaining children by Thursday as water levels continued to rise.

"I've been in Chiang Rai for nearly 10 years and I've never seen anything like this. Most people here can't remember water in the city like this," Pornchai said.

- 'Terrible, really terrible' -

The normally vibrant streets of central Chiang Rai lay submerged in waist-deep brown floodwater as the sun broke through the clouds on Thursday morning, with the city's intersections turned into canals.

Some residents waded through the water carrying buckets filled with food and other essentials collected from their homes.

Around the town, rescue trucks and boats traversed the water, searching for trapped residents.

A tearful woman in a wheelchair watched as her three meowing grey cats, rescued from her flooded home, were lowered to dry land as she sat in the back of a truck that had returned from a rescue mission.

Pyae Phyo Aung, originally from Myanmar, said it was the first time he had seen a flood in the 12 years he had been living in the city.

"When we packed our bags, the water level was around my thigh, but when I came to see my house in the evening, it was around my waist," he said.

"We never had floods here before, even though there was a lot of rain."

Shop owners had scrambled to protect their businesses with sandbags on Wednesday as the waters rose.

A man running a street food stand said he was terrified as the floodwaters arrived.

"Oh, it was terrible, really terrible," the man, who only wanted to be identified by his nickname Nat, told AFP.

"I had to close my shop. My fridge and my car all got flooded."

"I have been living here since my birth 47 years ago, and I have never seen a flood like this."

Local authorities are warning that more rain is expected in the coming days, complicating rescue efforts and further threatening homes in lower-lying areas.

"We're doing all we can," Father Pornchai said, "but this is going to take time."