Severe floods ravaging northern region

PHITSANULOK, Sept 2 (TNA) - Heavy rainfall in Thailand's North for several days has forced thousands of residents to evacuate to higher ground due to severe flooding and landslides.
Road access to some villages near Nam Tok Chart Trakan National Park in Chart Trakan District of Phitsanulok Province are under floodwaters 1 to 1.50 metres deep, making it impossible for cars to pass through for the second day on Saturday.
More than 700 families in a village in Chart Trakan District are now cut off from the outside world as floodwaters keep on rising.
Rescue officials have sent three flat-bottomed boats to assist the villagers in taking valuable effects to higher ground.
In Tak's Sam Ngao District, rising waters in the Wang River are about to rise over the riverbanks and it is feared that the water will overflow and inundate farmland and homes in three villages by Sunday afternoon.
Officials have warned resident to evacuate belongings and harvested crops to higher ground as they believe that runoff from Lampang Province will reach Sam Ngao Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, officials in Phitsanulok reported Saturday that rescuers had already recovered the body of the engine driver of a northern passenger train which ploughed into a landslide covering the tracks and plunged into the Yom River Thursday night.
Continuing heavy rainfall had led to the rain-soaked mountainside above the railway line giving way and the slide covered the railline right-of-way, leading to the accident, in which the engineer and a technician were missing.
The body of the technician has not yet been discovered; so rescue operations are continuing, local officials said.
Two passenger cars were also carried into the rain-swollen Yom River in the accident.