Floods

• Sunday, 15 Dec 2019
  12:57 PM MYT
  By STEPHEN THEN

image: https://apicms.thestar.com.my/uploads/images/2019/12/15/439034.jpg

Floods wrecking havoc in Kpg Kuala Tutoh and dozens of other settlements in interior northern Sarawak. - Pic by villager Michael Ding

MIRI: The floods in remote parts of Sarawak have left victims unable to cook as cooking gas cylinders have gone empty and the alternative – firewood – is wet from the deluge /ˈdeljuːdʒ/.
       Flood victims are sending out messages highlighting their predicament as they are cut off from the outside world and cannot travel to towns to buy more gas.
       The Star on Sunday (Dec 15) received a message from Kampung Kuala Tutoh, where a 72-door longhouse has been inundated by 0.7m of water.
Kampung Kuala Tutoh, in the upper reaches of the Marudi district, is around six hours away by boat from Miri.

        There are about 500 people from the minority Lakiput ethnic group living there.
The village's Lakiput Association senior member Michael Ding said cooking is a daily dilemma now.
        "We in Kampung Kuala Tutoh have run out of cooking gas.
"We cannot refill gas cylinders as we cannot go to the town as floods have cut off all the roads.
        "Travelling by boat is also dangerous as the rivers have swelled and are raging.
"Without cooking gas, we had to rely on firewood – but due to the bad weather since more than two weeks ago, the firewood is all wet.
        "We cannot cook anymore," he told The Star when contacted.
Ding said welfare authorities have sent packages of dry food to the flooded settlement.
        "Dry food like biscuits and canned food come in handy but we urgently need cooking gas," he said.
        Ding said the settlement has been under about 0.7m of water for more than a week and the first floor of the two-storey building is flooded.
The village is one of several dozen populated settlements severely hit by floods caused by the relentless landas season.
The landas in Sarawak is as ferocious as the monsoon on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia.

Tags / Keywords: Flood , Landas , Sarawak , Kampung Kuala Tutoh , Cooking gas , Firewood , Monsoon

My comments:  

        The water is 'teh-tarik' in colour and so it must be the water from the overflowing banks.   It is understood that Kpg Kuala Tutoh is quite near  the Baram river.  I wonder how much forest area has been logged for timber and for the construction of the Baram dam which was only axed off in 2018.  The bare land upstream will speed up the flow of water downstream.  So the said kampung is plagued by the deluge upstream.  I wonder if the Bakun dam and the Murum dam have also affected the said areas in Miri, Bintulu, Limbang, Lawas and Kapit.  I wonder, wonder, wonder, ........ how i wish i could get first-hand knowledge and information from the victims in the affected areas.
        I hope that these Sarawakians will wake up and rise up to vote GPS government out and support Parti Bumi Keyalang for good and a new Sarawak with little or no floods at all.  Only independent Sarawak with the resources and new leaders, we can fully develop Sarawak.  Sarawak is for Sarawakians.