The body of an elephant lies among floodwater debris in Chiang Mai yesterday. (AP pic)
BANGKOK: Two elephants drowned during flash flooding in popular Thai tourist hotspot Chiang Mai, their sanctuary said today, as local authorities evacuated visitors from their hotels and shops closed in the city centre.
More than 100 elephants at the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai province were moved to higher ground to escape rapidly rising flood waters, an employee who gave her name as Dada, told AFP.
But two elephants – named in local media as 16-year-old Faa Sai and 40-year-old Ploy Thong, who was blind – were found dead yesterday.
“My worst nightmare came true when I saw my elephants floating in the water,” Saengduean Chailert, the director of the Elephant Nature Park in northern Thailand, told local media.
“I will not let this happen again, I will not make them run from such a flood again,” she said, vowing to move them to higher ground ahead of next year’s monsoon.
Ploy Thong, who lost her herd during the flood, was swept away by the raging river despite the diligent efforts of her caretaker, said the Elephant Nature Park in a Facebook post last night.
Faa Sai had ventured close to the river during the flood and despite the efforts of the nature park team to keep her safe, “she too was taken by the current”.
Both Faa Sai and Ploy Thong were found drowned about 1km downstream from the park.
Ploy Thong was rescued in 2018 from an elephant riding camp in Pattaya, having previously worked in the logging industry, while Faa Sa was rescued in November 2007.
In Chiang Mai city centre, people waded through muddy water close to knee height in the night bazaar, and water flowed into the central train station, which has now been closed.
Tourists were forced to evacuate hotels and a local TV station showed a monk carrying a coffin through floodwaters to a cremation site.
Major inundations have struck parts of northern Thailand as recent heavy downpours caused the Ping River to reach “critical” levels, according to the district office.
The water level peaked yesterday but had receded slightly today.
Thailand’s northern provinces have been hit by large floods since Typhoon Yagi struck the region in early September, with one district reporting its worst inundations in 80 years.
Twenty provinces are currently flooded, the department of disaster prevention and mitigation said today.
