No evacuation call made, say Cameron flood victims
In the wake of the Bertam Valley flash floods in Cameron Highlands, some victims claim that the police did not go door-to-door to evacuate residents.
In the wake of the Bertam Valley flash floods in Cameron Highlands, some victims claim that the police did not go door-to-door to evacuate residents.
They say this is important, because warning sirens alerting of a water release from the Sultan Abu Bakar Dam are a common and largely harmless occurrence and the locals say they have become desensitised to it.
“We had this experience before in 1988, where the police and Rela (People’s Volunteer Corps) went door-to-door to tell us to evacuate.”
“This time, they definitely didn’t,” said vegetable farmer Khor They Keng (left), who claims to have suffered losses in excess of RM200,000 when flood waters swept over her farm.
She was speaking to Malaysiakini today about the disaster in the early hours of yesterday morning, showing the damage to her farm.
Three perished while one went missing after a gate at the Cameron Highlands hydroelectric dam was manually opened past midnight due to water levels reaching its maximum limit, causing a flood in the valley below.
Some 80 homes as well as a primary school were also affected.
The deluge damaged about 100 vehicles and some were apparently found about a kilometer downstream.
'Siren too late'
Another local resident Wong Yin Yong (below) corroborated Khor’s account, saying the police would normally urge the people to evacuate hours before the water is released, or stay at their own risk.
“It is not like this time. When the siren was on, the water was already here. You must warn the people before you release the water, not release the water with the siren because we are used to it already.
“The siren has been on and off for 50 years, so it is not an emergency siren. It is a siren to people (indicating that water is being released). It is not an emergency siren,” he said.
The 58-year-old flower grower was born-and-bred in Bertam Valley and lives closest to the dam. Fortunately his home was unaffected by the flood as it sits on higher ground.
Wong said as a preventative measure, the dam should have slowly released water much earlier before emergency levels are reached.
When contacted regarding these revelations, Cameron Highlands police chief Wan Mohd Zahari Wan Busu denied the allegations and insisted that the police had called for an evacuation.
He said police went around in their patrol cars and used loudspeakers to urge residents to evacuate at about 11.45pm, about 15 minutes before the dam’s gate was first opened.
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