The government has demolished a memorial built by former Vietnamese boat people on a northern island where they were interned in the 1970s.

Officials in northern Terengganu state said the construction had never been approved and was destroyed last week on the orders of the Foreign Ministry, acting in response to a complaint from the Vietnamese government.

"The memorial was erected by the Vietnamese last year without any approval from the state government. They initially came to us for approval but we did not approve it," state Environment Committee chairman Toh Chin Yaw told the official Bernama news agency.

The monument on Bidong island, which was built in March, speaks of the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people who perished as they fled their homeland.

Bidong is among several places in Asia that bore the brunt of the exodus of Vietnamese asylum-seekers after the end of the Vietnam War in April 1975 and, later, "economic" refugees who followed in the 1980s and 90s.

Over 245,000 Vietnamese boat people passed through Bidong between 1978 and 1990, Bernama said.

Angry opposition

The decision to demolish the memorial had reportedly triggered angry opposition from the Vietnamese diaspora, and appeals to the Malaysian government to reconsider.

"However, other buildings and structures on the island, including a old memorial plaque built by the refugees before their resettlement were left untouched," said Toh.

He said the state government planned to restore the other buildings and structures on the island as they were of historical value.