Flash floods have killed at least 18 people in Thailand as heavy rains continued to ravage the country's south.

The flooding, which is roof-high in some areas, affected more than 700,000 people since it started a week ago, Thailand's interior ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

At least 18 people have died and one is missing, it added, with the rains turning roads into rivers, inundating farmland, and damaging more than 1,500 schools in the region.

The downpour is expected to persist for at least two more days, according to Thailand's Meteorological Department, which warned of more flash flooding.

"The situation is very bad today and tomorrow. It's still raining heavily," said Junjuda Pornsri, a meterological official.

Military bases across the region were mobilised to help evacuate flood victims, provide temporary shelters, and distribute emergency aid.

In hard-hit Nakhon Si Thammarat province, two army helicopters were deployed to airlift food to families trapped inside their homes.

Bapha Suthiphanya, a 60-year-old who has spent the past three nights in a makeshift government shelter, said she was forced to evacuate her home after the waters rose above her head.

"I was so shocked and scared. I've never seen water like this and I also cannot swim," she told AFP news agency.

Neighbouring Malaysia was also hit by severe flooding earlier this week with thousands stranded in relief centres in two northeastern states.

The rain is unusually strong for this time of year in the region, which normally sees a three-month long stretch of relatively dry and cool weather from November through to January.

READ MORE: Who is affected by climate change, and how?

It is high season for tourists who flock to the Thailand's island resorts, powering a crucial sector of the economy.

But the deluge has already disrupted beach holidays in several traveller hotspots, including the popular islands of Samui and Phangan.

Hundreds of tourists have had their flights delayed, while train and bus services on the mainland have also been suspended in flood-hit areas.

Yet some travellers are refusing to let the storm stop the fun, with photos circulating on social media of tourists coasting through flooded streets on pool floats.

"Some tourists are enjoying the flooding, they're taking pictures and going swimming," said Nongyao Jirundorn, a tourism official on Samui island.</s>Flash floods triggered by heavy unseasonal downpours continue to hit Thailand’s southern regions, leaving a dozen people dead and affecting thousands of villages. Official counts released on Saturday showed that at least 12 people had lost their lives over the past week.

 Several southern Thai provinces have been affected by the rains since January 1, with transportation disrupted, thousands of foreign tourists stranded and the resort islands of Ko Samui and Ko Pha Ngan deluged. The Thai Interior Ministry said in a statement that the flooding had affected over 700,000 people.

 Local officials also said the flood waters have damaged more than 1,500 schools in the battered regions.

 Meanwhile, the Thai Meteorological Department warned of possible “heavy rain and flash floods” with downpours expected to continue for two more days. “The situation is very bad today and tomorrow. It’s still raining heavily,” said Junjuda Pornsri, a metrological official. Nakhon Si Thammarat, the capital of a province with the same name, saw a record 162.1 millimeters of rain on Friday night, she noted. Additionally on Saturday, army bases across southern Thailand were mobilized to assist flood victims and deliver aid to the trapped citizens. “There are two helicopters airlifting food and supplies to flood victims who cannot leave their houses,” said Colonel Chaisak Pornnipatkul from the Thia Southern Army Headquarters. Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha visited the country’s flood-hit areas. Thailand’s wet season usually ends in late November and heavy downpours are rare in January. Widespread floods killed over 900 people in the Southeast Asian state in 2011.—Agencies</s>Flooding from heavy rains hammering Thailand’s south has left at least 18 people dead and thousands of villages partially submerged.



The flooding, which was roof-high in some areas, has affected nearly one million people in 10 southern provinces since it started a week ago, according to the country’s interior ministry.

At least 18 people had died and one was missing, the government said, with the rains turning roads into rivers, inundating farmland and damaging more than 1,500 schools in the region.

The downpour was expected to persist for at least two more days, according to Thailand’s meteorological department, which warned of flash floods.

“The situation is very bad today and tomorrow. It’s still raining heavily,” said Junjuda Pornsri, a meterological official.

Armed forces across the region were mobilised to help evacuate flood victims, provide temporary shelter and distribute emergency aid, the government said on Saturday.

In hard-hit Nakhon Si Thammarat province two army helicopters were deployed to deliver food to families trapped inside their homes in Cha-uat district.

Bapha Suthiphanya, a 60-year-old who has spent the past three nights in a makeshift government shelter in the district, said she was forced to evacuate her home after the waters rose above her head.

“I was so shocked and scared. I’ve never seen water like this and I also can not swim,” she told AFP.

The monsoon rains are unusually heavy for this time of year in Thailand, which normally sees a three-month stretch of relatively dry and cool weather starting in November.

It is high season for tourists who flock to the kingdom’s island resorts.

But the deluge disrupted beach holidays in several traveller hot spots, including the popular islands of Samui and Phangan.

Hundreds of tourists had their flights delayed, while train and bus services on the mainland were suspended.

Some travellers refusedto let the storm stop the fun, coasting through flooded streets on pool floats and sipping drinks.

“Some tourists are enjoying the flooding, they’re taking pictures and going swimming,” said Nongyao Jirundorn, a tourism official on Samui island.

Neighbouring Malaysia was also hit by severe flooding earlier in the week, with thousands stranded in relief centres in two north-eastern states.

By Saturday the number of evacuees in Kelantan and Terengganu had dropped to about 13,500, from almost 23,000 on Wednesday, as weather conditions improved and authorities forecast less rainfall over the weekend.

The prime minister, Najib Razak, visited Kelantan on Saturday and met with people sheltering at a relief centre.</s>The Flash is still running hot as one of CW‘s best shows. Barry Allen and Team Flash are halfway through season three. Although we have only seen nine episodes before the show went on its winter break, a great deal has happened.

Top 10 Plot Points So Far In Season Three Of The Flash
• Harrison Wells Goes Back To Earth-2 And H.R. Wells Comes From Earth-19 To Earth Prime
• Caitlin Snow Is Shown To Have The Powers Of Killer Frost
• Savitar Is Revealed To Be The Main Speedster Villain
• Doctor Alchemy Is Unmasked And Reveled To Be Julian Albert Who Is A CSI For The Central City Police Department
• Barry Goes Into The Future And Sees Savitar Killing Iris
• Team Flash Joins Up With Team Arrow, The Legends From Legends Of Tomorrow, and Team Arrow In Order To Stop An Alien Invasion
• Jay Garrick Returns To Earth Prime In Order To Help Barry Defeat Savitar
• Barry Reunites With His Parents As He Lives His Life In The New Timeline Created By Stopping His Mother From Being Murdered By The Reverse Flash In The Past.
• Barry Asks The Reverse Flash To Go Back In Time And Kill His Mother In The Hopes That The Flashpoint Timeline Will Be Reset Back To The Normal Timeline

At the end of season two, Barry decides to go back in time and stop his mother from being murdered at the hands of the Reverse Flash. Barry believes that by doing this, he can live a life with both of his parents. His mother will be alive and his father will not be in jail for her murder. Before he decides that going back in time, Barry is forced to watch his father be murdered by Zoom. Zoom killed Barry’s father as a way to manipulate Barry into a race. The race was a ruse. Zoom wanted to force The Flash to run as fast as he could in order to power up a weapon that would wipe out the multi-verse.

Zoom killed Barry’s father as a way to manipulate Barry into a race. The race was a ruse. Zoom wanted to force The Flash to run as fast as he could in order to power up a weapon that would wipe out the multiverse. Barry was able to outsmart Zoom, saving the multiverse. Just as it seems that The Flash is going to kill Zoom, two Time Wraiths appear out of the Speed Force, capture Zoom, and drag him back into the Speed Force. As they were taking Zoom away, Zoom is transformed. The transformation removes the skin from his face, leaving just his skull, and the lightning bolt on his uniform changes color to red. Fans quickly realized that Zoom had just become the Black Flash.

In The Flash mythos, Black Flash is considered to be an incarnation of the Grim Reaper for speedsters. The reason that a speedster has to be pursued by a Grim Reaper speedster is due to the fact that heroes like The Flash can outrun death.

Since Black Flash was established in the season two finale of The Flash, fans have been waiting for a sign that the character was going to return in season three. Entertainment Weekly reported on the appearance of Andrew Kreisberg at the Television Critics Association’s press tour. Kreisberg is the executive producer of The Flash and what he was quoted as saying will surely not only give fans of The Flash elation, but it has also given them the answer about Black Flash that they have been waiting for.

“He will [be] the classic comic book Grim Reaper aspect. It’s just going to be on multiple shows. He’s a classic character and we have storylines on multiple shows that fit having him return. There’s something so scary about him, even scarier than when he was just a man because now he is the Grim Reaper, he is like the Devil. How do you stop the Devil? It presents an interesting challenge for the heroes of the respective shows in which he appears.”

The fact that Kreisberg said that Black Flash will appear on multiple shows may have fans scratching their heads as to why, but the answer is pretty simple. Right now, The Flash and Legends Of Tomorrow both have speedsters on them. Those are the two shows that make the most sense that would have a need to use a Grim Reaper speedster. There does not seem to be any logical reason as to why Black Flash would appear on Supergirl or Arrow. The only reason that Black Flash would appear on Supergirl or Arrow would most likely be that either Flash or Reverse Flash is one of those shows as a result of a crossover taking place.

Fans of The Flash will only have to wait a couple weeks before the CW ends their mid-winter break. The Flash is set to return on January 24.

Are you excited to hear that the Black Flash will make his return to The Flash?</s>BANGKOK
• The Thai authorities yesterday warned of flash floods across the south as torrential rain lashed the region leaving at least eight people dead, delaying flights and disrupting holidays during the peak tourist season.

Nine provinces along Thailand's southern tail have been hit by unseasonable rain for nearly a week, with the resort islands of Samui and Phangan deluged, leaving thousands of tourists stranded or delayed.

Eight people have been killed and at least 120,000 households have been affected by the flooding across the south, the Interior Ministry said.

Waters have turned roads into rivers and upended rail tracks.

The authorities fear there may be worse to come.

The Thai Meteorological Department warned of possible "heavy rain and flash floods" in the region, with the downpour expected to continue for two more days.

A smattering of foreign tourists on Samui took advantage of the flooded streets, drawing bemused looks from locals as they bobbed along in inflatable tubes sipping beers.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha visited the southernmost province of Narathiwat yesterday to distribute aid.

Thailand's wet season usually begins in May and ends in late November. Heavy rain and flooding are rare in January, which is high season for beach resorts in the south.

Twenty-six flights to and from the main airport in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat were cancelled yesterday because the runway was flooded, the Department of Airports said.

"The floods began on Jan 1 and are due to the unseasonable heavy rain," said an official at the National Disaster Warning Centre .

Railway services on the main line linking Thailand to Malaysia have been suspended because the track is flooded.

Meanwhile, clear skies across the border in Malaysia's north- eastern states meant flood waters and river levels receded yesterday. Still, some 13,000 people in Kelantan remained stranded at relief centres though they are expected to return to their homes in the coming days. Sungai Golok, the river which lies on the border between Malaysia and Thailand, stayed above its danger level of 9m.

Residents in Terengganu state fared better; just under 1,300 people remain at relief centres, compared to 10,600 a day earlier. Those who made their way home began the tough task of assessing the damage and cleaning up.

They were grateful to see the flood waters subsiding but were wary of the rains returning.

"Last night, the flood waters rose up to my chest and today it receded. We will begin cleaning the mud, which we think is about two inches thick, from the house," said Mr Mohd Anuar Ali, 41, as he cleared debris from his house.</s>Adobe Flash Player made its debut more than two decades ago, and its rise and fall from power made quite a splash in the tech world. Since its initial release, Adobe Flash Player managed to climb to the top and quickly became the standard solution when it came to browsing and application development.

Although not everyone shared this view, with Apple’s Steve Jobs being one of the most known combatants of Flash, the majority decided that Flash is the way to go, hence all the major websites of today are based on Flash. Fast forward a couple years and you will find yourself in 2007, when Flash first started giving signs of failure. While Flash was spreading across multiple spectrums, Apple CEO Steve Jobs spoke against it and claimed that its plugin was very detrimental to a machine’s resources. Also, he was a blunt supported of HTML which was preparing to launch HTML5 back then.

Fast forward once again and now it’s late 2016, and everyone is ditching Flash. If you really were to jump through time like that, you would probably be perplexed by a lot of things such as robotics and advanced transplant procedures, and also how Flash completely went from hero to zero.

The problem with Flash is its vulnerability towards exterior attackers. This problem has grown over the years as the technology behind Flash continued to age. We now find Flash running with constant updates, but still based on technology that is now more than 20 years old. Tech professionals do not shy away from calling that “ancient” in their world. Late 2016 was swarming with cases of attacks and security breaches which were made possible by vulnerabilities found in Flash. The decay of Flash became official when Google ditched it in favor of HTML 5, and removed it as the default solution for its Chrome browser. While Flash is too spread out to be completely removed overnight, the first steps are being taken and 2017 and 2018 are predicted to hold massive drops in Flash user shares.

We will have to wait and see how the situation evolved, as Flash is trying to find some kind of salvation by now returning with a new update for Mac OS, after it had previously stated that won’t happen. Most believe Flash is beyond salvation and that it is only a matter of time before it’s gone.</s>The Scarlet Speedster beware: Black Flash is returning to The Flash!

In the season 2 finale, Hunter Zolomon (Teddy Sears) was transformed into the Black Flash by the Time Wraiths — and now he’s coming back to wreak havoc.

“You might be seeing him on multiple shows,” executive producer Andrew Kreisberg said at the Television Critics Association’s press tour on Sunday.

In the comics, Black Flash is basically a Grim Reaper for speedsters, sending them back to Speed Force upon their death. While technically a villain, Black Flash is more of a personification of Death than a mustache-twirling antagonist.

“He will [be] the classic comic book Grim Reaper aspect,” Kreisberg says. “It’s just going to be on multiple shows. He’s a classic character and we have storylines on multiple shows that fit having him return. There’s something so scary about him, even scarier than when he was just a man because now he is the Grim Reaper, he is like the Devil. How do you stop the Devil? It presents an interesting challenge for the heroes of the respective shows in which he appears.”

As of now, only The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow have speedsters on their shows, but that could certainly change.

As for whether Sears will return to reprise his role, Kreisberg played coy. “I’m not sure,” Kreisberg said. “Teddy is pretty busy with [24: Legacy].”

The Flash returns Tuesday, Jan. 24 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.</s>Six people are dead after torrential rain and flooding battered the southern regions of Thailand over the last week, Channel News Asia reported. The flooding has affected 120,000 households, according to a statement from the Interior Ministry, as well as delayed flights and disrupted tourism.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Asian Correspondent.</s>At least 12 people have died and many villages been submerged after heavy rains caused severe flooding in southern Thailand.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected with water levels reaching “roof-high” in some areas, Thailand’s interior ministry said.

Transport services, including flights, have been disrupted and rescue efforts are under way to reach those stranded.

The unseasonal downpour is expected to continue for at least two more days.

The flash floods have also damaged hundreds of schools and toppled power cables across southern Thailand.

Residents in villages across the region are using inflatables, such as rubber rings, to cross submerged roads.

Meanwhile, the airport in Nakhon Si Thammarat province has been forced to close after the area received a record 162mm (6.4 in) of rain on Friday, officials said.

An official for Thailand’s Meteorological Department told AFP news agency that the situation was “very bad”, adding that it was still “raining heavily” in the south.

In response to the crisis, the Thai navy has stationed its largest ship in the South to act as a floating command centre, dispatching aid using helicopters and small boats.

Last month, aerial footage showed flood damage to parts of southern Thailand with only rooftops visible above the flood waters. Supplies were being delivered to residents by boat.

The downpour in Thailand is unseasonably heavy for this time of year, with the country usually dry between November and January.

It comes at an unfortunate time for the Thai economy, which relies heavily on tourism, with this being peak holiday season.

In 2011, devastating floods in southern Thailand displaced thousands of people in more than a third of the country’s provinces, resulting in more than 600 deaths.</s>– Heavy rains continued to batter Thailand’s southern provinces, bringing the death toll to 12 and submerging thousands of villages.The Thai Ministry of Interior said the prolonged rain and follow-up flood have affected over 700,000 people and paralysed the road and railway traffic system since it started a week ago.

Nakhon Si Thammarat international airport had to halt operation due to a record rainfall of 162.1mm.

The trans-Asia expressway, which runs through this region, was also hit by flood while tens of thousands hectares of cultivation land were damaged.

The downpour also destroyed over 1,500 schools.

It is expected to last at least two more days, the Meteorological Department said, warning that severe floods could occur in eight of the hardest-hit provinces.

Army bases across the south were mobilised on January 7 to assist flood victims and deliver food to trapped ones.

The unusual flood season normally lasts from November to January in Thailand.-VNA
Flash flooding in southern Thailand kills at least 18 people.