New building to replace school that slid into Saribas River

A new building is to be put up on a three hectare-land at a cost of RM3 million to replace the Sekolah Kebangsaan Kampung Buda building in Spaoh that slid into the Saribas River yesterday due to riverbank erosion.

Sarawak Welfare, Women and Community Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah said today the new building would come up about 2.5km away.

It would be built using the Integrated Building System that had been used to build six other schools in the state, she told a joint press conference with Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas at the state legislative assembly building here.

Also present were Saribas state assemblyman Mohd Razi Sitam and State Education Department director Rakayah Madon.

"This is the long-term measure that we have discussed and agreed upon with Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem.

"For the short term, we have allowed the 73 students and three teachers of the school to continue with their classes at the nearby Sekolah Kebangsaan Paoh in the afternoon session," she said.

Fatimah, who is also in charge of education matters in the state, said there were 486 high-risk schools in the state.

"By high risk, we mean schools that are in flood-prone areas, by river banks, atop hills or on hill slopes, and can be affected by soil erosion," she said.

Fatimah said the names of these schools had been sent to the Education Ministry and she hoped that there would be an immediate response to replace them.

Uggah said the school incident should serve as a wake-up call to the Education Ministry to immediately look into the problems faced by many old rural schools in the state.

"We hope they will respond promptly to our request for new schools to be built to replace them," he said.

Uggah is expected to fly to Spaoh later today to see the situation at close hand. He was supposed to have flown there yesterday but technical problems with the helicopter forced him and Mohd Razi to abort the flight.