Authorities said the death toll rose to 307, mostly from drowning. And outside the capital, thousands of people remain displaced and hungry residents were struggling to survive in half-submerged towns.
The military rescued terrified civilians from the rooftops of flooded buildings in the swamped city of Ayutthaya, one of the country's hardest-hit.
Bangkok has averted calamity so far thanks to a complex system of flood walls, canals, dykes and underground tunnels that are helping to divert vast pools of runoff south into the Gulf of Thailand. But if any of the defences fail, floodwaters could sweep through the tense city.
Ronnarong Wong-Ngern, a bare-chested construction worker in northwestern Bangkok, said residents still worried that things could go wrong.
"I can't sleep at night," Ronnarong, 38, said as he stood beside a wall of sandbags built over a canal straddling one of the capital's northernmost borders. "Whenever it rains, all the men here get up and start adding new sandbags to these walls."
Seasonal rains that drench Southeast Asia annually have been extraordinarily severe this year, killing hundreds of people across the region. Thailand has been particularly affected. More than 200 major highways and roads have been shut, as have the main rail lines to the north.
Despite widespread fears that disaster could hit Bangkok, the city has so far been mostly untouched. Heavy rains soaked the capital for much of the day yesterday, but life was otherwise normal with shopping centres open and elevated trains crossing the city.
Nationwide, the Government says property damage and losses could total US$3 billion ($3.7 billion) or more. The most affected provinces are just north of Bangkok, including Ayutthaya, a former capital which is home to ancient and treasured stone temples. The tops of historic pagodas rose out of the water like islands.
In Ayutthaya itself, troops in patrol boats rescued people who had taken refuge on rooftops after waters burst into the Bang Pa-In Industrial Estate.
"It's very scary, it's never been like this since I was born," one of them, Kwaikai Jeunglam, said.
Agriculture Minister Theera Wongsamut expressed confidence the worst was over but stopped short of saying the threat to Bangkok had passed completely.
Theera said the largest mass of runoff water flowing south from the country's heavily inundated central plains had already passed through Bangkok's Chao Phraya River and into the sea, and water levels in the river would rise no higher. Floodwaters in the central provinces of Singburi, Angthong, and Ayutthaya had also begun to recede, Theera said.
A spokesman for the Government's flood relief centre said floodwaters had abated in the central province of Nakhon Sawan too.
