SAKON NAKHON — A number of residential areas in the northeastern region were hit by flash floods Friday as a result of a tropical storm blowing from South China Sea.

The flood – the worst in 40 years by some accounts – was particularly severe in the city of Sakon Nakhon, where residents found water rushing into their homes in a time span of less than a day. The local airport was also forced to shut down by Friday afternoon.

Officials said the airport would reopen Saturday night if the flood lessened.

Some residents in Sakon Nakhon said the flood is the worst in four decades.

“It’s almost like the flood in 1974,” businessman Chupong Khamjuang told reporters. “As far as I remember, it was as bad.”

The flood on Friday afternoon hit the city center and townships around Sakhon Nakhon, after a local reservoir failed to hold back the mass of water there – a consequence of several days of ceaseless rainstorms.

Sakhon Nakhon and other provinces in the northeast are currently affected by Sonca, a tropical storm that made a landfall on Vietnam earlier this week.

Floods were also reported in some provinces in the central plain.