Tropical Storm Linda hit Thailand's southern coastal provinces on Monday night after cutting a wide path of destruction in southern Vietnam over the weekend. The storm was downgraded from a typhoon as it passed over Thailand.
Linda is now headed into the Bay of Bengal off the coast of India, and is expected to regain some of its strength.
At least three people in Thailand lost their lives and more than 100 fishermen are missing, according to the South China Morning Post. About 20 fishing boats on their way back to port in the Gulf of Thailand turned over in huge waves spawned by the storm.
Hardest hit were the southern coastal towns of Prachuap Khiri, Chumpon, Surat Thani and Khan. Typhoon Gay killed more than 500 people in the same region eight years ago.
Government-run emergency shelters were set up in Surat Thani and Chumpon. More than 200 families were stranded by floods in the Thana Chana and Chaiya district of Surat Thani.
In preparation for the storm, Unocal Thailand Company evacuated 665 workers from an offshore oil rig. The company, which operates in the Gulf of Thailand, evacuated 128 workers by helicopter and another 592 people by boat. They were sent to Songkhla, the Bangkok Post reports.
Linda, which formed in the South China Sea, was one the worst storms to hit Vietnam. As many as 200 fisherman are feared drowned after the storm sunk their boats as it hit Vietnam with 63 mile-per-hour winds on Sunday.
At least 1,000 boats sank and 2,000 homes were destroyed, CNN reports. More than 12,000 homes in the Ca Mau province collapsed. Rescue and recovery efforts have been difficult because so many of the fishing villages in the region were unprepared for the storm.