Hat Yai Flood: Death Toll Tops 60, Authorities Mobilize Massive Aid

Families across southern Thailand woke up to the grim reality that the disaster in Hat Yai is more than a flash flood—it has become a complex public-health emergency touching on everything from morgue capacity to mental-health support. Officials insist the picture will sharpen in the next forty-eight hours, but they have already moved resources on a scale rarely seen outside pandemic times.

Snapshot of the Crisis

Rising water from three converging river systems pushed parts of Hat Yai under more than a meter overnight, forcing hospital evacuations and leaving whole neighbourhoods cut off. By Thursday evening the Ministry of Public Health acknowledged over 60 confirmed fatalities, but senior staff warned that the figure is provisional because rescue teams are still prying open flooded homes. Authorities say the true count will come only after Prince of Songkla University, the regional data hub, reconciles every case to avoid double entries. Meanwhile the Disaster Prevention Department labels Songkhla Province the hardest-hit zone in the South this year, eclipsing storms that battered Phatthalung and Nakhon Si Thammarat just months ago. A round-the-clock hotline on 1667 now answers medical questions and relays calls for supplies, underscoring how far the incident has moved beyond ordinary flood response.

Counting the Dead: Why the Number Shifts

Public Health Minister Pattana Promphat rejected rumours of data manipulation, arguing there is "zero incentive" to understate loss of life when compensation funds require an audited ledger of victims. His directive pegs Songklanagarind Hospital, part of Prince of Songkla University, as the single repository for every deceased person recovered. Rescue crews deposit bodies there after tagging GPS coordinates and personal items, steps designed to prevent a tragedy within a tragedy—families looking for names that appear twice or not at all. Forensic pathologists, nearly 20 doctors and 39 technicians flown in from Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai, are cataloguing fingerprints and dental records under a protocol refined after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Data are released twice daily in an open spreadsheet so local officials, insurers and faith leaders quote identical numbers.

From Containers to Field Hospitals: Managing the Aftermath

Morgues in the district maxed out within hours, forcing the ministry to requisition ten refrigerated containers, each kept under 4 °C, on the compound behind Songklanagarind. Inside, volunteers attach bar-coded wristbands before sliding bodies onto steel racks, a measure the Royal Thai Police insisted on to preserve chain of custody. Upstream, mobile generators keep the temperature steady even when municipal power cuts out. On the living-care side, eight field hospitals now ring the city. One occupies a corner of Hat Yai airport, another fills classrooms at Wat Khlong Hae School, and a third operates in the canteen of a soft-drink bottler. Together they offer about 400 beds, oxygen concentrators and stocks of tetanus vaccine that arrived by helicopter after the provincial warehouse flooded. The Army’s Extreme V amphibious vehicles ferry antiretrovirals, insulin and family-size water packs to improvised landing points where pickup trucks cannot yet reach.

Mental Health and Community Support

Long after the water recedes, responders fear a surge in post-traumatic stress among residents who watched neighbours swept away or waited days for rescue. The Mental Health Department dispatched multiple MCATT units—teams of psychiatrists, social workers and psychologists—to each field hospital. They canvass shelters, noting anyone exhibiting acute anxiety, while discreetly offering language-appropriate counseling for migrant workers from Myanmar and Laos. Village health volunteers, the familiar อสม. network, have set up improvised kitchens that churn out thousands of portions of rice porridge so medical staff can remain at triage posts. In higher ground temples, monks coordinate with Red Cross nurses to create quiet zones where the bereaved can carry out Buddhist bathing rites before formal cremations, a detail local leaders say is essential for emotional closure.

What to Watch in the Days Ahead

Meteorologists give mixed signals: one model shows the northeast monsoon easing, another warns of a secondary low moving in from the Andaman Sea. If more rain falls, evacuation centres may stay full well into next week, delaying the school term that was due to restart on Monday. For now health officials urge residents to monitor only official ministry channels, promising that any error in body counts, vaccine schedules or road-closure maps will be corrected within hours. The credibility of that pledge—and the speed at which Hat Yai can pivot from rescue to rebuilding—will shape public trust long after the last sandbag is removed.