A Malaysian man's urge to answer the call of nature has made him a local hero after he saved 100 people from being buried alive when their homes collapsed, a report said Saturday.

Renjis Empati, 57, was walking to the toilet outside his communal longhouse in the early hours of Thursday when he noticed his kitchen collapsing, the New Straits Times said.

He then shouted to alert residents in the 14-door longhouse, as well as nine other homes in the village in eastern Sarawak state on Borneo island.

"I could feel the earth trembling and saw the longhouse collapse into a sinkhole," said Renjis, left only with the shorts he was wearing and a shotgun he rescued from his home, according to the report.

"All my belongings, including jars passed down from my ancestors, are lost," he told the newspaper.

Longhouses, used by Sarawak's indigenous communities, consist of a series of family apartments under one roof which are joined by a passageway and communal spaces.

'Floor wobbling'

"If it were not for him, most of us would be dead by now," said longhouse resident, Lada Rentap, 67.

Another resident, Limah Buma, 70, said she was dragged to safety by her husband.

"I could not walk as the floor was wobbling and when we reached the stairs outside, it slowly sank one rung at a time into the earth," she said, weeping over lost possessions including hand-woven rattan mats collected since she was 12.

"I also lost seven jars, passed down from my ancestors. Those were priceless. Those jars were hundreds of years old," she said.