This has been a whirlwind year of natural disasters and unfortunately they are not over yet. Thailand has been dealing with intense flooding and it appears that the situation is only getting worse. Right now the flood waters are threatening the capital city, sending many fleeing and the government agonizing. Get the latest on the story here!

CBS News highlights…

BANGKOK – Clambering aboard bamboo rafts and army trucks, residents fled waterlogged homes on the outskirts of Thailand’s capital on Thursday as floods that have engulfed a third of the country inched closer to downtown areas and foreign governments urged their citizens to avoid unessential travel to the threatened city.

Most of Bangkok remained dry and most of its more than 9 million residents were staying put to protect their homes. Still, uncertainty over the capital’s fate and the start of a government-declared five-day holiday fueled an exodus of people fearing the worst who clogged highways and air terminals to get out of town.

Tears welling in her eyes, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra acknowledged her government could not control the approaching deluge.

“What we’re doing today is resisting the force of nature,” Yingluck told reporters. She said the water bearing down on Bangkok was so massive that “we cannot resist all of it.”

The floods, the heaviest in Thailand in more than half a century, have drenched a third of the country’s provinces, killed close to 400 people and displaced more than 110,000 others. For weeks, the water has crept down from the central plains, flowing south toward the Gulf of Thailand. Bangkok is in the way, and today it is literally surrounded by behemoth pools of water flowing around and through it via a complex network of canals and rivers.

By Thursday, flooding had inundated seven of Bangkok’s 50 districts, most on the northern outskirts. There, roads have turned into rivers and homes and businesses are swamped. On one flooded key east-west artery, police were turning back small cars, telling them the road had become impassable.

The government has expressed deep concern over higher-than-normal tides expected through the weekend which are expected to peak on Saturday. Yingluck has warned the entire city could flood if key barriers burst or if the Chao Phraya river, which snakes its way through the heart of the metropolis, crests above flood barriers lining its banks.

The river has overflowed already, sending ankle-high water lapping at the white exterior walls of Bangkok’s gilded Grand Palace, a highly treasured complex that once housed the kingdom’s monarchy and is a major tourist attraction.

The water has receded with the tides, slightly flooding the area in the morning and evening, but leaving it bone dry in the afternoon.

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