Tourists, staff evacuated from flood-hit Phetchaburi resort
About 60 tourists and workers of a resort in Phetchaburi’s Tha Yang district were safely evacuated on Wednesday morning after the resort was inundated by runoff from a dam on Tuesday evening.
Rescuers from Sawang Sanphetchaya Dharma Foundation used two barges to relocate the tourists and workers, who had been stranded on a hill in the middle of the resort in Tambon Wangkrai since Tuesday evening.
The operation to relocate the tourists and transfer their belongings took about two hours due to a strong flow of water from the upstream dam.
Irrigation officials in Phetchaburi said they had to release a lot of water from the Phetchaburi dam after days of torrential rains caused it to reach its capacity.
Initially, rescuers tried to evacuate the tourists late on Tuesday night but had to abort the operation because the water flow was too strong.
During the operation on Wednesday morning, the rescuers had to coordinate with the irrigation officials to stop releasing water from the dam for two hours.