Kg Kiau landslide also results in water rationing
Published on: Sunday, May 20, 2012
Kota Kinabalu: Last week's landslide in Kg Kiau Taburi, Kota Belud, not only cut off road access and power supply to the village and vicinity there but necessitated water rationing to various parts of the district as well.A Water Department spokesman said production from its water treatment plant at Bayayat had dropped substantially due to the landslide."Thankfully the plant is still be able to produce some water to end users given that the quality of the raw water at our intake point at Tampasuk river had literally turned to mud," he said.
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He reiterated that the incident which occurred in the wee hours of May 9, caused water intake process from the river to be slow."We carried out water rationing in most parts of this district to ease the burden of our consumers and that is why certain places had water while the others didn't," he said.He said treated water priority is accorded to the government hospital during the span of the water shortage. "Taun Gusi area was among the affected places," he said.The spokesman was responding to complaints by Daily Express readers residing in Kg Pirasan, who bemoaned the hardship they encountered in getting sufficient water for family use.
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"I have to drive to town to buy several boxes of drinking water and to fill up several bottles of water for general cleaning purposes in my house during that period," lamented one villager. Meanwhile, electricity supply is expected to be available to the affected villagers at Kg Kiau by now. Work to restore power to Kg Kiau Taburi will be completed much earlier, thanks to villagers who volunteered to help Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) transport important materials to the location.
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Managing Director, Abd Razak Sallim, said the alternative route still could not be used to transport the poles and cables to the location."At the moment, we have to transport the poles and electricity cables on foot via the hills," he said.The huge landslide saw between 2,000 and 3,000 people affected and electricity cut off in the area.During the incident, electricity was abruptly cut off from 300 houses in the village when the landslide shifted a large mass of soil and also 10 electricity poles from their previous location, he said.He said SESB sustained RM30,000 in losses from the disaster.Nevertheless, he expressed the company's gratitude to the villagers who helped personnel speed up restoration of power to the area.On other developments, he said, the SESB has agreed to contribute RM70,000 to relocate its poles and high voltage cables at the Bandar Kim Fung, Mile 4, Sandakan.Abd Razak said the amount is 47 per cent from the total cost of RM149,413 to shift the poles and cables to a new location."The RM70,000 contribution is the single largest corporate social responsibility (contribution) payment from SESB to an agency," he said.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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