Out of her concern for young children and her own father, a teacher yesterday walked over 20 kilometres uphill along severed routes in Phrae to reunite with them.

Kanokwan Kadaeng, 29, said she had left the children and her father behind because she had to help an injured victim into a helicopter that immediately headed for medical assistance.

"I have to go back to take care of the children, and my father is alone in our damaged house. He's going to need some food," she said. About halfway to her destination in Ban Namklai in Muang Phrae district, Kanokwan remained confident that she could complete her journey on foot because she used to walk such distances before the floods hit earlier this week.

After flash-floods and landslides hammered this northern province, four people were confirmed dead and one victim reported missing.

"The disaster destroyed 86 houses and damaged 166 others," Muang Phrae district chief Chavalit Mekjamroen said yesterday.

Authorities were working hard to assist flood victims. A helicopter successfully airlifted a kamnan, 50-year-old Prakij Phathong, from a marooned area in Phrae yesterday evening. Prakij was found exhausted and with foot injuries.

It was difficult to help the flood victims in areas inaccessible by land. As rescue workers were trying to restore routes to flood-hit areas, they found two cars buried in mud.

Muang Phrae district police station superintendent Colonel Somkiat Pradpreao said helicopters were taking food to flood victims.

Late on Thursday, Sergeant Akadej Wannamahachai and three other soldiers located the body of a victim in Phrae because of a barking dog. The dog, Junko, would not leave his master, Surachai Senakham, who drowned in the flooding.

Surachai's body and Junko were lifted out of the area by helicopter. Local television showed Surachai's five-year-old daughter rushing to Junko and crying after the dog was rescued.

In Uttaradit more than 1,000 soldiers and volunteers yesterday were using dogs, helicopters and bare hands to search for victims of the devastating flash-floods, but work was proceeding slowly because some areas were only accessible by helicopter.

"Dogs have helped a lot in the search for bodies and survivors trapped in the jungle," Major Lertchai Khaithong, chief of the search-and-rescue centre in Uttaradit, said yesterday. "The dogs led rescuers to a couple who had passed out on a hill and had been there for three days, starving."

Lertchai said the couple had scrambled up the hill to escape the flood and had been trapped there for three days before the dogs found them late on Thursday.

He said search dogs had also led rescuers to three bodies buried in mud.

Meanwhile, the number of flood victims at a big temporary shelter in Uttaradit's Laplae district dropped from 3,000 to 1,500 yesterday because many people had started back to their homes.

"It's overcrowded here," Suphaporn Pookerd said with her baby in arms at the shelter.