Floods

pressreader.com

6 Dec 2019+2 morePhilip Kiew

• • The Borneo Post
  • 7 Dec 2019
• • The Borneo Post
  • 8 Dec 2019

LAWAS: There may be no respite in sight for flood-hit north­ern Sarawak, with the weather­man pre­dict­ing more rain over the next few days.

         Malaysian Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Depart­ment (MetMalaysia) Sarawak di­rec­tor Am­bon Din­dang said the cur­rent weather pa ern is con­sis­tent with the year-end mon­soon sea­son, and is likely to re­main un­changed up to the week­end.
      “It’s nor­mal – it rains then stops and then rains again,” he told The Bor­neo Post when con­tacted yes­ter­day.
         Am­bon was asked whether the pub­lic could ex­pect any let up in the per­sis­tent heavy rain in Miri and Lim­bang di­vi­sions this past week, which had swelled rivers and trig­gered flood­ing here as well as in Lim­bang and Baram.        

         An over­flow­ing Lawas river spilled onto the runway and park­ing apron at the air­port here, lead­ing to its shut­down yes­ter­day and can­cel­la­tion of all flights, while six schools in the district were also closed due to the river burst­ing its banks.

        The State Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Commi ee sec­re­tar­iat in its re­port at 7am said the Civil Avi­a­tion Au­thor­ity of Malaysia is­sued a No­tice to Air­men ( No­tam) alert for the air­port for close, in view that its runway had been in­un­dated by about two feet of wa­ter.
        Pas­sen­gers who had hoped to fly to Lim­bang, Kota Kin­a­balu or Miri yes­ter­day re­port­edly had to take to the road as a re­sult of the flight can­cel­la­tions.
        The clo­sure pe­riod for the air­port will de­pend on how quickly the flood re­cedes as well as the amount of re­sult­ing mud and de­bris le on the runway, ac­cord­ing to the sec­re­tar­iat.

        Another re­port is­sued at 9am stated that the Ed­u­ca­tion Depart­ment had re­ported that the six af­fected schools were hit by be­tween one and three feet of wa­ter.
         Mean­while, Lawas District Of­fi­cer Ladin Atok, who also chairs the district dis­as­ter man­age­ment commi ee, said flood­wa­ters in the Tru­san town area had re­ceded while the wa­ter level out­side the town and in Sun­dar had risen slightly.

      “All the rel­e­vant agen­cies are on alert as our op­er­a­tions room has been al­ready ac­ti­vated to deal with the mon­soon flood­ing in­ci­dents,” he told The Bor­neo Post.
The Tru­san evac­u­a­tion cen­tre at the com­mu­nity hall here, which ini­tially had three evac­uees, saw the num­ber climb to 42 as of 4pm yes­ter­day as vil­lagers of Kam­pung Se­berang Kedai, Kam­pung Ge­la­pas, Kam­pung Peruma­han Ge­lapis, Kam­pung Masjid Tru­san, Kam­pung Lua­gan Kelilang, and Kam­pung Ten­gah Tru­san were forced to flee their homes.

The Borneo Post

6 Dec 2019