37 deaths, 10 missing person reports received at flood areas as of last night - IGP

SHAH ALAM: A total of 37 deaths and 10 missing person reports were recorded at flood areas throughout Malaysia as of last night, said Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani.

From the total, five deaths were reported in the past 24 hours involving four adults and one child while two victims are still missing.

He said 68,341 flood victims from 18,080 families were recorded at 396 relief centres (PPS) in seven states with Pahang being the most affected state this time.

Apart from Pahang, six more states involved are Perak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Melaka, Kelantan and Negeri Sembilan.

In this regard, he said 137 roads were still closed due to floods so far involving four states with 120 locations in Pahang, two locations in Negeri Sembilan, three locations in Kelantan and 12 locations in Selangor.

Apart from that, based on information from the Department of Irrigation and Drainage, as at 2.30 am, 23 locations of rivers were placed under danger and warning levels.

"The danger level involved 13 locations with nine rivers in Pahang, on each in Selangor and Johor and two in Kelantan," he said in his daily media conference on Ops Banjir in Taman Sri Muda here today.

The rivers with warning level were one each in Selangor and Johor and two each in Pahang, Kelantan, Melaka and Sarawak.

For death cases received from flood affected areas, Acryl Sani said police are still waiting for the post-mortem on the cause of death.

"So far, we have not received any reports and if necessary we will need provide the information and so far I believe the post-mortem is still in progress," he said.

Asked why the total deaths differs between the authorities and state government, he said every type of death must be reported to police in accordance to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act.

"Each death reported to police will be recorded as a statistic received...and a paper will be opened for each death called the Sudden Death Report," he said.

At the same time, he said, so far a total of 1,081 police officers and personnel as well as 880 civil servants who served with the Royal Malaysia Police were affected by the floods nationwide.

"Meanwhile, until two days ago, I received reports of seven stations were affected by the flood disaster," he said.

-- BERNAMA