Telipok Jaya folks face another round
Published on: Thursday, September 08, 2005
TELIPOK: Residents of Taman Telipok Jaya, whose houses came under three feet of water following a two-hour downpour Wednesday, are still blaming poor drainage and land reclamation activities for their troubles.The flash floods hit less than two months after the one on July 17 which claimed three lives. Fortunately, it lasted for only an hour and during the day.This time the worst hit area was Telipok Jaya where more than 20 of the 136 single-storey terrace house were under three feet of water following the shower at noon.
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"We have become the victims of carelessness on the part of certain authorities and victims of rapid development," said Mohd Kassinizam Abd. Kassim, whose house was under two feet of water.He said the authorities should ensure contractors undertaking work comply strictly with directives, especially with regard to sizes of drains and culverts."Please help us to solve our predicament," said fellow resident Ah Chong, adding it was bad enough that they had suffered losses amounting to thousands of ringgit during the severe flooding on July 17."We cannot afford any further losses," he said emphatically.
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Pointing to a drain near the main road, Ah Chong said land reclamation activities carried out on the other side of the road saw their drain being completely blocked, causing rain water to spill over to their housing area.He added that they have informed several government officials who visited them after the July floods but that until now no action had been taken.
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"The situation became worse when another mass reclamation was carried out at the Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP)," said another resident.He pointed out that the Government recently gave each affected family RM150."It is not that we don't appreciate the money but more importantly the Government should either repair or build new drains to ensure we are not hit by floods again," he said.The SMK St Peter was also not spared and was under one-and-half-feet of water which receded in the afternoon. A resident, Sabri Osman, 40, who is teaching at SMK Bandar Menggatal, said he did not manage to save anything as the water was coming in fast.He said the refrigerator, washing machine, sofa set and other things in the living room were all soaked. "The same things were destroyed during the July 17 flood and I bought new ones to replace it. Now it's gone again," he said, estimating his losses to be around RM3,000.Yong Kui, 42, a contractor, said he rushed home upon being informed by his wife that the water level was rising. "Luckily, it is not night-time or else we might not even know as only one hour of rain can cause such flood," he said.Flood waters also affected cars at Telipok Jaya after the owners failed to move it to higher grounds. "When I want to remove my car to somewhere else, the area was already heavily flooded," said a resident.Although the rain had stopped, many students were still unable to go home in Telipok Jaya as the water was receding very slowly.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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