Red Cross of Thailand workers distribute hot meals from a mobile kitchen to flood victims in Angthong. HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn has led the effort to launch the mobile kitchens, which can each serve 2,000 meals a day.

The region's flood crisis has shown few signs of easing over the past days.

Her Majesty the Queen yesterday donated Bt2 million for renovation work at a number of temporary shelters built on 15-rai Royal plots in two villages in Angthong's Muang district.

Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn has seen to it the Red Cross of Thailand distributes meals in a hard-hit area of Angthong using mobile kitchens. Her Royal Highness is chairman of the humanitarian network in the Kingdom. The kitchens can feed as many as 2,000 people a day each.

As well as taking in flood victims the shelters on Royal land serve as depots to store relief supplies. The land had been earmarked for organic vegetable farming and vocational training - projects that will continue when flooding subsides.

Villagers living near both sites were deeply appreciative of Her Majesty's generosity and those receiving Red Cross meals thanked Her Royal Highness.

The kitchens vary menus that are prepared according to Red Cross nutritional guidelines.

Marooned monks at as many as 37 temples have been supplied with portable toilets and food, water and other relief supplies by boats built by vocational students.

The province is desperate for clean drinking water. Bottled-water supplies have been hoarded and prices for six bottles have risen to between Bt18 and Bt25.

Meanwhile, floodwaters will be diverted onto farmland in seven Central provinces within the coming days. Diversion will reduce the volume of water carried by the Chao Phya River into Bangkok, according to Royal Irrigation Department director-general Samart Choknapitak.

The farmland to be flooded measures 1.38 million rai. It can absorb 20 centimetres of water and still allow rice crops to survive.

The flood-diversion scheme will ensure the capital is protected from severe flooding - especially when Chao Phya River-levels are forced to their annual highs by high tides in the Gulf of Thailand. That is expected between October 23 and October 25.

Two boats built by the Chai Pattana Foundation under the patronage of His Majesty the King will dock at Wat Chalerm Phra Kiat and Koh Kret in Nonthaburi province. There they will cope with human waste that would otherwise pollute waters. The boats were built on the advice of His Majesty to help the long-term displaced during the floods of 11 years ago.

The numbers of people made ill as a result of flooding has reached 335,000, according to official Public Health Ministry statistics.

The five most common illnesses were athlete's foot, rashes, fever, stress and sleep disorders, conjunctivitis and diarrhoea.

Meanwhile, workers constructing flood-retention barriers from sandbags at Muang Ayutthaya district were forced to allow water through after angry villagers threatened them and claimed their homes had been flooded for weeks as a result of the barriers.

Woman soldiers stationed at an arsenal in the district were detailed to build flood barriers after their male comrades had been dispatched to flood relief operations elsewhere.

Flood barriers made from sandbags have been increased in height and more pumps deployed to Wat Intha Pramool to save its 400-year-old reclining Buddha image from damage.