Thousands flee Bangkok as flooding crisis worsens

THAILAND’S prime minister said that Bangkok was fighting the forces of nature as residents fled and floodwater threatened to burst through dikes protecting the capital.

The country’s worst flooding in half a century, caused in part by heavy monsoon rain, has killed 373 people since mid-July and disrupted nearly 2.5 million lives, until now mostly in the north and central provinces.

But Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, a novice politician who only took office in August, told reporters that the crisis had now reached a critical point for Bangkok.