Thousands of people in Thailand are fleeing their homes as flood waters threaten to engulf entire villages and towns.

More than 250 people have been killed by monsoon rains in the past two months, and now authorities are working around the clock to stop waters from reaching the capital, Bangkok.

Reporting from the northern Ayutthaya province on Tuesday, Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay said: "So much of the flood waters lying around in the northern part of Thailand are on their way to ... Bangkok."

Yingluck Shinawatra, the Thai prime minister, said on Monday that government workers had two days to build three major water barricades before a runoff from the north reached Bangkok.

She said she did not know if Bangkok would be protected from the flooding.

"It is really hard to tell because it's difficult to predict the volume of water," Yingluck said. "But I insist if we can complete the three main water barriers within the next one or two days, Bangkok will be safe".

Drowning deaths

The country's Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department has said 269 people have died, mostly from drowning, since tropical storms began hitting Thailand at the end of July.

It said 8.2 million people in 60 of the country's 77 provinces have been affected by floods and mudslides, and 30 provinces are currently inundated.

The government planned to use 1.5 million sandbags to build the barriers but still lacked more than 100,000 as of Monday.

PHOTO CAPTION

An aerial view of a flooded area in Ayutthaya province October 10 2011.

Al Jazeera