Council: Kemaman flood clean-up may take two weeks

It may take two weeks to clean up the flood-hit areas in the municipality, Kemaman Municipal Council (MPK) anticipates.

MPK president Mustafar Khalid said, 20 ten-tonne lorries, 12 excavators and five small lorries were being used to collect the bulk and domestic refuse at 20 housing estates and several other areas.

The clean-up process, which began Wednesday, has been divided into seven zones based on the amount of refuse, he said, adding that the zones were Paya Berenjut, Bukit Mentok, Bukit Mentok Baru, Fikri, Mak Cili, Air Putih and Mak Lagam.

"The clean-up work is being handled by two contractors supervised by 13 MPK health officers. It is estimated that each of the estimated 3,000 houses will have about 1.5 tonnes of bulk refuse," he told Bernama at his office Wednesday.

Describing the floods as the worst since 1971, Mustafar said he hoped that residents would exercise patience as the council was short of manpower and had a limited number of vehicles as three of them were damaged in the flood.

He said the council had obtained aid from the Dungun and Kuala Terengganu local authorities. The Road Transport Department's volunteer squad would also help out.

Mustafar said the devastating floods were caused by exceptionally heavy rain over three days from Dec 2.

About 1,000 cars were damaged after they were submerged by the flood waters, he said.

Some 300 of the 550 MPK employees also fell victim when their houses were flooded, some to a depth of almost two metres, he said.

Meanwhile, Kemaman UMNO Youth said it would help out in the cleaning by concentrating first on mosques and surau which had been used as relief centres.

Its head, Ahmad Fikry Ibrahim, said 60 members of the movement would go down to the ground Thursday and start cleaning up.

About 300 UMNO members from the Chukai and Air Putih state constituencies would be involved in the cleaning up which was being undertaken with the cooperation of the Kemaman Rakan Muda complex.

Three mosques and three surau were among 35 relief centres opened on Dec 2.

Ahmad Fakry said, as part of the preparation to face the second wave of floods, the movement had opened five posts in strategic areas in Chukai to facilitate the evacuation of people in the event of floods.