Flooding eases near Bangkok

BANGKOK - Thailand's capital was breathing easier on Monday as barriers protecting Bangkok from the country's worst flooding in half a century held together and the government said floodwaters ravaging provinces just north of the capital had begun receding for the first time.

Authorities said the death toll rose to 307, however, mostly from drowning. And outside the capital, thousands of people remain displaced and hungry residents were struggling to survive in half-submerged towns. On Sunday, the military rescued terrified civilians from the rooftops of flooded buildings in the swamped city of Ayutthaya, one of the country's hardest-hit.

Bangkok has averted calamity so far thanks to a complex system of flood walls, canals, dikes and underground tunnels that are helping divert vast pools of runoff south into the Gulf of Thailand. But if any of the defenses fail, floodwaters could sweep through the tense city.