Floods cut off access to over 1,300 villagers in Sarawak district

Longhouse residents and villagers forced to use boats to buy daily necessities.

MUKAH: An 800-metre stretch of an access road to Tanjung Pedada, Sungai Mukah, Sarawak was inundated with floodwaters, cutting off about 1,350 people from 17 longhouses and a village over the past four days.

As of 10 am today, the stretch of road was still under 1.5 metres of floodwaters, said Mukah/Dalat District Council deputy chairman Mawar Awang.

He said his longhouse, Rumah Mawar, was among the longhouses cut off by road.

“The flooded stretch is impassable and the longhouse residents and villagers have had to use boats to get to higher ground before proceeding to Mukah town to buy daily necessities.

“Looking at the weather today, we fear that the floodwaters will keep rising,” he said when contacted by Bernama today.

He said the stretch of road was also flooded last year and the floodwaters stagnated for two weeks, damaging fruit and vegetable crops.

“The floodwaters started rising 10 days ago but it was only in the last four days that the road access was cut off. The floodwaters had also risen up to one metre below the stilted longhouses,” he said.

Mawar said he and the other longhouse chiefs would meet the Mukah district officer today to inform him of the floods and inform the Public Works Department of the need to upgrade the flood-prone stretch of road.

He also said that Tellian state assemblyman Yussibnosh Balo had been informed of the situation.

Mawar said the current in Sungai Mukah had been swift of late and this posed a danger to the school children who used boats to get across the river to Sekolah Kebangsaan Kenyana.

Meanwhile, Sekolah Kebangsaan Kenyana, which has 40 pupils, 13 teachers and seven administrative staff, has been closed since Monday after floodwaters rose to a depth of 0.94 meters at the school. -FMT