Hundreds of books at Penang Japanese School damaged in floods
GEORGE TOWN: Hundreds of library books at the Penang Japanese School in Sungai Pinang have been damaged in the massive flood as volunteers tried to salvage the remaining ones in a gotongroyong session.
More than 50 volunteers including parents, teachers and students cleaned the muddy floor of the library while others moved some of the school’s furniture to dry out in the sun.
However, some pieces of furniture were so badly damaged in the flood and they could not be salvaged.
The volunteers also scrubbed the school’s music room, which stored several traditional Japanese musical instruments.
They started work at 8.30am yesterday to clear the mud after the hours-long storm.
The school’s assistant principal Ishibashi Kenji said that although the students and teachers experienced floods before, they did not expect it to be as bad as it was over the weekend.
“In the 43 years since the school was founded, the flood on Saturday caused the worst damage to the school,” Ishibashi said, adding that classes were cancelled yesterday to allow the volunteers to clean up the school.
“We are thankful for the help we received gotong-royong activity today,” he said
The school which was founded in 1974 has 152 students in Standard One to Standard Six, and from Form One to Form Three.
Ishibashi also added that the classes at the school would resume today.
A check with other schools in Jalan P.Ramlee and Jalan Lim Lean Teng, which were among the badly affected areas, showed students and teachers carrying out gotong-royong sessions to clean up their schools.