AYUTTHAYA: A makeshift embankment at a bridge leading into a major industrial estate collapsed yesterday, allowing floodwaters to surge in, causing damages that could run up to 18 billion baht. OPPORTUNITY IN CRISIS: A man casts his fishing net near the reclining Buddha image at Wat Loke Yasutha temple in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya district of Ayutthaya province yesterday.

(CNN) -- When renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs visited rural villages in sub-Saharan Africa in 2005, he saw impoverished communities with poor drinking water, feast-and-famine crop cycles and rampant malaria infections. What he didn't see was mobile phones.

Thailand's worst floods in more than half a century have reached a "crisis level" and threaten to swamp the capital, Bangkok, as early as next week, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said. 30 Billion baht of damage has been done

At least 150 people have died since August in the worst floods to have hit the south-east Asian country in 11 years, after heavy rain swamped homes, washed away bridges and forced thousands of people to evacuate