Mucky business: Thai prisoners clean Bangkok sewers after pandemic delay

Volunteering prisoners pulling out a fellow inmate from inside a drain channel during the sewer cleaning drive. - AFP

BANGKOK (AFP): Flecked with sewage, a Thai prisoner grapples with an overflowing bucket as he and his fellow inmates clean Bangkok's congested drains for the first time in two years.

Pre-pandemic, convicts could volunteer to clear the sewers of Thailand's capital -- which sits only 1.5 metres (five feet) above sea level and is perennially beset by flooding -- earning time off their sentences.