Residents in Thailand's Don Mueang district have defied the authorities, destroying flood barriers made of sandbags to create a way for boats into 20 flooded housing estates with some 80,000 residents.

Some 200 residents forcibly removed the sandbags placed by the government in their residential district and opened a 6-meter gap on Saturday.

Government authorities led by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra wanted some flood pumps installed, but the sandbag barriers maintained intact.

But residents, according to the Bangkok Post, could no longer wait for the pumps and met on the crest of the barrier near Don Mueang airport and moved a number of the submerged big bags.

The removal of the flood barrier could increase the flooding in the business and commercial districts of Bangkok, Shinawatra sais at a press briefing Sunday

"The Flood Relief Operations Command did not order the removal of the bags, weighing up to 2.5 tonnes each. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration will expedite in the next few days the pumping of water retained in the barrier, which is helping to protect the downtown area but at the cost of prolonging the disaster in certain parts of the city's northern and inner-north suburbs," she said.

Protest leader Thinnakorn Janya said residents had removed smaller sandbags piled at the top and opened a 6-metre gap in the barrier to ease the flow of flood waters surrounding their homes for three weeks now.

He said some 80,000 residents are there and seemed to have been neglected by the government authorities because there is yet no plan to remove the flood waters now submerging their homes.

Bangkok Post reported that Deputy Bangkok Gov. Thirachon Manomaipibul has voiced his disagreement with opening a gap in the big bag barrier. In a letter to yingluck, he said he has advised the premier against tampering with the barrier to spare the inner city.

If the barrier is ruptured, it could have far-reaching ramifications on the economy, education and society, he said in a press briefing.

(Contact the reporter and editor at c.jared@ibtimes.com.au)

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