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AsiaSoutheast Asia

The migrants desperate enough to live in 'container villages' who keep Thailand's economy ticking over

An estimated 4 million foreign migrant workers have flocked to Thailand in search of higher wages.

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Migrant construction workers in Samut Prakan, Thailand, call these steel containers home. Photos: AFP
Migrant construction workers in Samut Prakan, Thailand, call these steel containers home. Photos: AFP
The village sprang up in a matter of days - neat lines of bright- yellow houses that looked like something a child might have built with Lego bricks.

This eye-catching complex on the outskirts of Bangkok is unlikely to win any architectural awards. But for the hundreds of migrants who live there it is an unusually neat home in a country where poorly paid foreign workers often toil in harsh conditions.

The village is made out of refurbished shipping containers, stacked three blocks high and connected by a series of walkways and ladders.

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Over the next three years its 800 or so inhabitants will construct one of the many luxury condo blocks that add to the Thai capital's ever-shifting skyline.

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