Bagan Dalam rep M Satees claims that during heavy rain Monday night, the pumps in Taman Bagan were only turned on 90 minutes later to discharge floodwaters.
Heavy rain and high tide caused flooding in several areas in Penang. (Bernama pic)
BUTTERWORTH: A state assemblyman whose area was badly hit by floods early this morning has urged the Seberang Perai Municipal Council (MPSP) to be more vigilant.
Newly-elected Bagan Dalam state assemblyman M Satees said when it started raining heavily about 11 last night, the pumps in Taman Bagan were not switched to automatic mode, and the person in charge was not at the location to turn it on.
The former councillor said that by right there should be a person monitoring the situation every 30 minutes and to start the pumps in the event of possible flooding. However, this was not the case and the pumps only started 90 minutes later.
“There should have been someone there monitoring the pumps and checking on it every half an hour. But this did not happen.
“I urge MPSP to view this matter seriously.
“Flooding could have been reduced if the pumps had started discharging water earlier,” he said during a visit to the Permatang Tinggi pump house in Bukit Mertajam near here today.
Present were state Public Works, Utilities and Flood Mitigation Committee chairman Zairil Khir Johari and Machang Bubuk assemblyman Lee Khai Loon.
Zairil said the heavy rain last night lasted from 11pm to 4am. The rainfall recorded, he said, was 116mm, which was classified as very heavy rain.
He stated that the flooding was compounded by a full moon yesterday, which resulted in high tide.
“The rain was very heavy here in Central Seberang Tengah.
“In fact, it also rained very heavily in North Seberang Perai, as well as the two districts on the island.
“But the worst hit was Central Seberang Perai, where some 30 areas were affected, in Machang Bubuk and Bagan Dalam,” he told reporters here.
The RM8 million pump house in Permatang Tinggi, according to Zairil, was completed last year and had the capacity to discharge eight cubic metres of water per second.
A second package, also costing RM8 million, was also recently completed. Called the Permatang Tinggi Drainage Bypass, Zairil said the purpose of the bypass was to channel water from upstream to the pump house in Permatang Tinggi.
“The pump house will then pump the water out to Sungai Junjung. These two are among the five flood mitigation projects which have just been completed.
“Based on feedback I have received from the assemblymen, flooding has been mitigated. We can see the positive impact of the projects. Areas that used to experience bad flooding are now in better shape,” he said.
Another three projects have yet to be completed, namely the construction of a RM10 million retention pond in Alma, for which construction is expected to begin early next year.
A fourth flood mitigation project, costing RM40 million, began in the Mak Mandin area in Butterworth two months ago and is scheduled for completion in March 2020.
“We want to ask for the rakyat’s patience. An infrastructure project this big cannot be completed overnight.
“We need to go through all the necessary procedures, such as design, tender process and then construction.
“We saw how heavy the rain was last night. On top of that, there was a full moon, which led to the high tide. So flooding happened.
“But as I have shown just now, the two completed projects have already yielded results in the reduction of flooding.
“Naturally, on its own, this will not be enough to mitigate the flooding. We need to complete all the projects to see the results,” he said.
It was previously reported that the project in Mak Mandin will involve the upgrading of the drainage systems in the area, which is a 4.45 sq km catchment area for Sungai Mak Mandin, and building a 2.3km monsoon drain from Teluk Payer to channel water out to Sungai Prai.
The former state exco in charge of flood mitigation, Chow Kon Yeow, had said a new pump house would also be built at the Taman Bagan tidal gate to replace the temporary pumps.
The new pumps are 12 times more powerful than the existing ones and are capable of pumping 7.5 cubic metres of water per second.
The project will help address the issue of flooding in the area which affects 255 houses in Taman Cantik and Taman Bagan, 30 factories and four schools. -FMT
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