King tide, heavy rain trigger flood alert

[Admin]

Sources from theborneopost.com

SIBU: Rivers in central Sarawak have breached the alert level, as flood forced at least seven schools to close and hundreds to be evacuated.
An engineer of the Irrigation and Drainage Department here, Ting Sing Kwong, said with the king tide and heavy rain the 
water level in the rivers reached 2.6 metres on Monday night which is above the flood alert level of 2.5 metres.


“We have felt the ‘topping-up’ effect, but we have not reached the dangerous level at 2.9 metres yet.”
Ting added that the reading at Sungai Merah was 95mm, Airport was 72mm and Sarawak Maritime Academy, 64mm. 
More than 60mm of rainfall could trigger a flood.
Amidst the worrying situation, Ting said there were some good news as most parts of the low-lying areas 
here like in Lanang were not flooded thanks to the completion of Flood Mitigation Plan of Phases I and II.


Meanwhile, in Selangau, three schools – SK Pelugau, SK Selangau and SK Sg Kuo – were closed as flood water was waist-deep in some areas.
Four other schools SK Ulu Sengan about 35km from Sibu and three Chinese schools – SJK Ing Guong, SJK Guong Ming and SJK Ting Sing in the West Bank villages were also closed as water level there had reached about three feet.


Selangau Flood Relief Centre confirmed yesterday they had set up two evacuation centres to house the evacuees.
An officer said one evacuation centre was at Dewan Serdas Selangau, where 321 people from longhouses in the area are putting up.
At press time yesterday, he said the flood situation had not improved.


Rumah Watson one of the longhouses not affected by the flood has been turned into a temporary evacuation 
centre for people from four nearby longhouses – Rumah Gamang, Rumah Banyoi, Rumah Entalang and Rumah Upong .


Penghulu Thomas Jawa said the flood victims were supposed to be evacuated to SMK Balingian on Monday 
but the school has no power and insufficient water supply and so they were forced to squeeze into Rumah Watson.


However, he said Rumah Watson is also in danger of being flooded and if the situation worsened then the evacuees 
and residents of Rumah Watson would have to be moved to higher ground.


The community chief added the army had put its personnel in the area on alert to help in the evacuation
 if the flood water kept on rising but he is not sure where the flood victims would be housed.


Another area affected by the flood is Sengan, 9km from Sibu Jaya, where residents of more 
than 10 longhouses are stranded as the only road leading to the area is under three feet of water.


Dudong assemblyman Yap Hoi Liong, who was there early yesterday to help the flood victims, said thousands of folks were affected.
He said people in the area had been appealing for help from the government to solve their flood problems to no avail.
Yap said he would bring up the flood problem in Sengan at the next sitting of the State Legislative Assembly.