Faced with late help, villagers pull through floods by self-organising

Residents in several areas in Pahang hit by massive floods went without clean water or electricity as the disaster wreaked havoc on the local infrastructure.

Worse, many also lost connection to the outside world as telecommunication services were disrupted. Kampung Sungai Dua in Bentong was one such village.

Kampung Sungai Dua, which sees the Karak Expressway cutting through the village, saw single-storey homes almost completely submerged when water started to rise last Saturday evening.

With no immediate help from authorities in sight, the villagers were forced to organise themselves for the rescue effort and food.

Loh Sai Meng (above), the Parent-Teacher Association (PIBG) deputy chairperson of SJKC Kampung Sungai Dua, was among those who helped organise the effort.

The primary school is now a temporary shelter for the villagers, a one-stop centre for villagers to register their loss, aid distribution centre and information centre.

Loh recounted that on the night the water started rising, he and some Orang Asli volunteers had rushed out on a boat to evacuate the villagers to higher ground until 3am the next day.

“The water level was too high and the flow was too fast. When we wanted to return to the village for the third time, we could not make it anymore.

“My fellow Orang Asli friends also did not dare to continue the rescue. At that time we still heard some villagers cry for help but we could not do anything about it,” he said.

Loh said that they continued the rescue right through to the morning and found there were still more than twenty people stranded on rooftops.

He noted that floodwaters had also inundated parts of the Karak Expressway, leaving some motorists stranded.

Coincidentally, he and the Orang Asli villagers encountered Pahang regent Tengku Mahkota Tengku Hassanal Ibrahim Alam Shah's team at the highway.

Due to the emergency, Loh said he had no choice but to bravely seek assistance from the Pahang regent despite only managing to speak “bahasa pasar”.

After observing the village situation, Loh said the regent contacted the Fire and Rescue Department for assistance and managed to get a team from Perak to come to the rescue around 2pm that day.

Telecommunication services were only fully restored yesterday afternoon, six days after the flash flood first started.

Following the aftermath, Loh has gathered a group of housewives to cook hot meals for the flood victims so people can focus on clean-up efforts.

“Like myself, my house which is located on the other side was not hit by the flood. So I decided to gather everyone to work together and share the burden as our village head was affected by the flood too.

“Furthermore, everyone’s house and kitchen were already a mess after the floodwater receded.

"That is why I seek help from our women to cook meals for everyone here so that at least they do not have to worry about food,” he said.

According to Loh, around 10 volunteers prepared two meals per day, which included 300 packs of lunch and 260 packs of dinner.

Loh said that on the first day after the flood receded, the villagers had to gather ingredients and food from the fridges of flood victims to cook.

Fortunately, he added that various food aid and basic necessities were sent to the village the following day after some villagers headed to town to request help.

Bilut assemblyperson Lee Chin Chen was also on the ground to help with the effort.

Meanwhile, the Kampung Sungai Dua New Village Development and Security Committee (JKKKB) has set up a flood relief committee to raise funds and is in contact with the government agencies.

According to its Facebook page, the committee has raised RM30,000 as of last Thursday (Dec 23).

The committee also collected information from the flood victims to facilitate their compensation claims from the government to avoid the need for them to queue up at the local police station.

A police report was a prerequisite for the compensation claim.

Pahang state government has announced that a special cash aid of RM500 will be handed out to each household affected by floods.