Thailand to airlift critical patients as southern floods kill 33

Authorities in Thailand plan to send helicopters on Wednesday to evacuate critically-ill patients from a southern hospital marooned by some of the region's worst floods in years, as the death toll rose to 33, with more rain expected.



Floods have swept through nine Thai provinces and eight states in neighbouring Malaysia for a second successive year, prompting both countries to evacuate nearly 45,000 people.



In Indonesia, eight to 13 people are estimated dead following floods and landslides this week, while one has died in Malaysia.



In Thailand's hardest-hit city of Hat Yai, a public health official said helicopters would deliver food and ferry out patients after the first floor of the main government hospital treating 600, some 50 of them in intensive care, was inundated.



"Today, all intensive care patients will be transported out of Hat Yai Hospital," the ministry official, Somrerk Chungsaman, told Reuters.



About 20 helicopters and 200 boats drafted into the Hat Yai rescue effort have had difficulty reaching stranded people, government spokesman Siripong Angkasakulkiat told reporters.