Floods continued to ravage many northern provinces yesterday, affecting many schools and inundating a house built for a paralysed woman and her daughter on His Majesty the King's instructions.

Neighbours had to help La-iad Mansamrit move to the second storey of the house in Phichit's Muang district after the ground floor was flooded.

The house was built after La-iad's daughter Malairat, then 12 years old, wrote to His Majesty in 2004 to ask for his help. His Majesty graciously instructed relevant authorities to provide the family with assistance.

Malairat was working part-time at that time, but her earnings were not enough to support the cash-strapped family. Living in a shabby makeshift hut next to a rice barn, the girl and her mother had to rely on food given by neighbours, who were impressed with the Malairat's diligence and gratitude.

The flooding was as deep as 1.5 metres in some parts of Phichit and prompted the Wat Ban Bung School to suspend classes indefinitely.

In Phitsanulok province, residents of Noen Maprang district escaped unharmed when flash floods swept through the area early yesterday thanks to advance warning from sirens.

However, not all of them managed to save their possessions and there were reports of valuable items, cars and motorcycles being lost or damaged in the floods.

Noen Maprang district chief Praphan Phu-ngarm said the Ban Nam Pad School had been closed because it was under more than one metre of water.

In the province's Phrom Phiram district, teachers at the Ban Kor Long Tamniab School set up tents along a road to conduct classes. The school has been flooded for four days already and teachers said the students could not miss more classes.

"We closed for a week in June because of floods and we cannot suspend classes anymore," said teacher Subin Kua-kaew.

Classes for students from kindergarten level up to Grade 4 were held in the tents while the older students had to wade through floodwater to study in a school building that had not been so badly flooded.

Floods forced the Wat Phrom Kesorn School in Phitsanulok's Bang Rakam district to stay closed for a second day. Some villages in the district were marooned after access roads were flooded.

Meanwhile, Nan Governor Parinya Panthong called on people to seek medical assistance immediately if they had fever and muscular pain.

These are symptoms associated with leptospirosis, which has already claimed three lives in this northern province between August 22 and September 7. Twenty-three other were hospitalised with leptospirosis in the same period, with two under intensive care.

The outbreak was blamed in part on the recent heavy flooding in the province. "We are disinfecting the floodwater," Nan public health chief Dr Pisit Sriprasert said yesterday.

Pisit also advised people with open wounds who had waded through floodwater to immediately get antibiotics from hospitals as a precaution.

Nan Hospital deputy director Dr Niwattichai Sujaritjan said the leptospirosis that was spreading in the province was a severe form known as Weil's Syndrome.