AYUTTHAYA, Thailand (AP) — The lucky ones traverse this flood-submerged Thai city in navy boats and motorized canoes. The rest float on whatever they can find — inner tubes, swan-shaped pedal boats, huge chunks of muddied white plastic foam.

With large sections of Ayutthaya buried under a sea of one-story high water, rescue workers and volunteers are still crisscrossing town to pluck stranded residents from the ruins. Others are staying to protect what’s left. One boy donned a snorkeling mask to inspect his house, its corrugated roof faintly visible below the murky brown waves.

“Nobody ever thought the water would rise this high,” 54-year-old Pathumwan Choichuichai told The Associated Press in this city of ancient temples just north of Bangkok, minutes after a Thai navy team snatched her family from an apartment building where they were stranded for five days.

Epic monsoon rains and typhoons have battered a vast swath of Asia relentlessly this year, killing hundreds of people from the Philippines to India and inflicting billions of dollars in damage over the last four months. Thailand is among the hardest hit; the floods here are the worst in half a century, with more than 280 people killed since late July.