Melaka floods: Farmers claim to suffer heavy losses

Farmers in the Alor Gajah district claim they have suffered losses amounting to thousands of ringgit after their crops were damaged by floods which hit the area each year.

They claim the floods in the area have been unpredictable and not due to heavy rain but the overflow of water from other districts, especially Melaka Tengah, where the drainage system failure has not been addressed.

Farmer Abd Karim Abdullah, 47, who works on a 0.5 hectare padi field in Kampung Belimbing Dalam with a friend said they suffered losses of about RM8,000 to RM10,000 when the padi field was submerged.

"It is absurd for the padi field to be inundated after hardly a day of rain, but we received information that water from other areas overflowed here. Just look at the ditches, rivers and river banks (in the area) which are overgrown with weeds and full of mud and these are the main causes of flooding," he told Bernama here today.

A total of 251 flood victims were still being housed at seven relief centres as at 1 pm today, with 92 of them at four centres in Alor Gajah district and the rest in Jasin district.

Abd Karim said the problem seemed endless and as such, he appealed to the authorities to deepen and clear the ditches and rivers in the area on a regular basis.

-- BERNAMA