Villagers of Lobaan appeal to govt to solve perennial flood problem
Posted on June 29, 2015, Monday
Yong (seated left) and his fellow villagers are calling on the government to solve the flood problems of Lobaan village.
At a press conference yesterday, village elder Yong Ing Kie said the villagers had been experiencing floods for three decades.
Although they had raised this to the government countless times, the flood problem has persisted.
“Each time it pours and when there is a king tide, we become worried about the flood situation that has been destroying our crops and affecting our lives,” he told reporters.
He said the government had built a flood bund to protect the village, but flooding still persisted.
He blamed this on the damaged bund that is in need of repairs.
Yong revealed that in one of the worst floods the village had seen in 1997, the water had risen to almost five feet high, and all vegetable crops were destroyed.
He said about 100 villagers were affected by the problem.
The village elder added that whenever it flooded, it took about a week to 10 days for the water to recede.
“We hope the government will step in to help us so that we would not have to suffer continuously like this,” he said.
Sibu Division Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) engineer Ting Sing Kwong, when contacted, confirmed that the government had helped the villagers by building a flood bund that ran for a few miles to surround and protect the village.
He said the minor flood mitigation plan was built three decades ago with two flood gates. “Therefore, to say that the government has never listened to the cries of the villagers is untrue,” he stated.
Ting admitted that the village had been affected when the bund was damaged a few times before.
He further explained that there were times when the tide had risen above the flood bund, and the river water had overflowed and flooded the village.
He added that when the nearby Lobaan Bridge was built, it had also affected the flood bund and damaged it.
“Whenever the flood bund was damaged, we worked to repair it.
“Of the two flood gates, one has been damaged and the government is now building a new gate to replace it, and the flood bund is extended to the new gate,” he said.
He said this project, which costs RM750,000 was currently underway.
“The contractor was supposed to complete it last November, but he has delayed the works.
“We hope he will complete it in another three months before the rainy season sets and further delay the project,” Ting said.
Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2015/06/29/villagers-of-lobaan-appeal-to-govt-to-solve-perennial-flood-problem/#ixzz3eVLj7mGs
My comments:
The
minor flood mitigating plan with 2 flood gates built 30 years ago cannot no
longer accommodate the large volume of water after the construction of Bakun
hydro-electric mega-sized dam upstream and the large tract of land being
cleared off for Baram dam as well as other economic activities.
I
believe that minor flood gates have failed totally since the clearing of forest
for the construction of the Bakun dam.
The experience we had had with the threatening floods since 1996 in Sibu. The large scale floods were well-felt in
2000s. The flood mitigating plan only
took into effect in 2009 and ……
The
DID have not acted fast enough to deal with the problem and hence the villagers
have faced so much frustration and desperation for the late 17- 18 years. Am I wrong?
Procrastination
is the norm practice of the BN government.
It is not until the frustrated and desperate people make public the
issue.
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