SEREMBAN: Four men who were stranded for nearly five days at Gunung Telapak Buruk in Jelebu were rescued using a helicopter from the Fire and Rescue Department (JBPM) Air Unit this afternoon.

Negeri Sembilan JBPM Assistant Director of Operations Ahmad Mukhlis Mokhtar said they were two Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) employees and two security guards, aged 28 to 53 years.

He said the helicopter carrying the rescued men landed at the Sekolah Kebangsaan Pantai field at 3.15 pm.

"They climbed the mountain last Saturday for work. However, due to bad weather, the victims lost contact and could not descend due to the path (trail) which had collapsed and was cluttered with fallen trees.

"The 12-km trail was filled with a lot of debris. Therefore, the effort to rescue the victims using an Agusta AW189 Air Unit helicopter was carried out at 3 pm ," he said when contacted by Bernama.

He explained that the department received a call at about 8.15 am and efforts to rescue the stranded victims by land were initially attempted as soon as the rescue party arrived at the location.

He said one of the victims sprained his leg while the rest were found without any injuries at an altitude of 1,193 metres.


Meanwhile, one of the security guards, Mohamad Haziq Jaffree, 28, described the experience of being stranded for five days on the mountain as a close shave from tragedy.

He said that after finishing their work, they had all gone down to the foot of the mountain before nightfall but due to heavy rain, the route back collapsed leaving them stranded.

He said their food supply was only enough for a week and he was really thankful to be able to get off the mountain safely.

"We also had to rely on the genset (generator set) at the telecommunication transmission tower for lighting purposes following the torrential rain that hit the area.

"Thank you to the Fire and Rescue Department for rescuing us and if it was too late, our food supply would have been depleted," he told reporters.

-- BERNAMA