Several provinces in central Thailand braced for floods Sunday after the Irrigation Department announced it was releasing water from a major dam after weeks of frequent heavy rain.

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 said. But two elephants – named in local media as 16-year-old Fahsai and 40-year-old Ploython, who was blind – were found dead on Oct 6.

Evacuations are under way to help people stranded at numerous locations in Muang and Saraphi districts of this northern Thai province, which were heavily hit by the overflowing Ping River from late Saturday night.