KUALA LUMPUR: The worst flooding in Malaysia in more than a decade has killed 10 people and forced nearly 160,000 from their homes and more rain is expected, authorities said on Sunday.

Among the casualties, five were in the worst-hit state of Kelantan, in northeastern peninsular Malaysia. Over the border in southern Thailand, 14 people have been killed in the floods that began in mid-December.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak toured some of the worst-hit areas this weekend, following his return from a vacation in Hawaii on Friday.

Najib was criticized for his absence during the calamity, after being photographed playing golf with President Barack Obama.

Northeastern Malaysia and southern Thailand are regularly hit by flooding during the annual northeast monsoon but this year the rain has been particularly heavy.

The Malaysian government said rain in Kelantan and southern Thailand would last for at least another week. An official in the southern Thai border town of Sungai Kolok said it would take up to two days for water levels to drop and for the border to be reopened.

In Sri Lanka, twenty-four people have been killed and eight others are missing due to floods and mudslides caused by incessant rain around the country over the past week, officials said Sunday.

About 106,000 people have lost their homes or evacuated to safer locations, the Disaster Management Center said.

The biggest damage was reported in southeastern Badulla district, where 14 people were killed by mudslides. Dozens of tea plantation workers were killed in the same district in October when mudslides buried their homes.

It is monsoon season in some parts of Sri Lanka, but many other areas not normally affected are also experiencing nonseasonal rains.

Officials have been forced to transfer inmates from a prison and patients from some hospitals in the country’s north-central region to other facilities due to flooding.