Alor Gajah residents hope flood will not recur

Residents affected by this week's flooding in the district appealed to the relevant authorities to take necessary action to prevent the flood from becoming an annual event.

Technician Mohd Zamani Nordin, 29, who lived in Taman Seri Bayu 2 here, said the flooding in the area began to recur at the end of 2015 and since then his family had to evacuate every time flood occurred.

"Several years ago there was a project to deepen the rivers in the area and since then the area was no longer flooded, all was well until end of 2015, when it started to flood again and it also occurred in February of last year, and now.

"This time the flood wasn't as bad as last year, but we still had to evacuate due to safety reasons, and I hope it will not happen again as it is really difficult for us to move to the centre every time flood occurs," he told Bernama.

On Feb 7 last year, a total of 1,491 people in the district were evacuated, compared to this week's flood that saw the largest number of flood victims evacuated which stood at 210 people at 8am yesterday. All the victims were allowed to return home at 1.30pm yesterday (March 31).

Vegetable grower Herman Syuib, 42, from Kampong Panchor near here, said he suffered losses of about RM10,000 each time the river overflowed and flooded the area.

Based on his observation, Herman believed that the poor drainage maintenance including river filled with weeds and undergrowth was among the major contributors to flood.

S. Nirmala, 21, a university student from Taman Awan Biru here, said heavy rain lasted for about two hours on Thursday causing the water level to rise so quickly that she and her family had to move to the evacuation centre before being allowed to return home around noon yesterday.

-- BERNAMA