Time running out for those squatting along Sungai Pampang
KOTA KINABALU: Time is running out for houses illegally constructed along Sungai Pampang in the interior Keningau district.
Keningau district officer Yusop Osman said a census would be carried out before demolition of the illegally built houses along the river.
The move came after two houses were washed away and dozens were damaged after raging water eroded the riverbanks on Sunday in a flood.
He said Malaysian squatters living along the river would be relocated to various housing schemes.
In a related development, Sabah Chief Conservator of Forests Datuk Sam Mannan said the surge of water along the Sungai Pampang on Sunday was reminiscent of what had occurred along the river during Storm Greg in 1996.
He said dozens of houses were swept away during the storm with some 130 people killed and hundreds more missing which led to the clearing of squatters along the river.
Mannan said the riverbank was a riparian reserve and was unsuitable for human occupation.
He said Sungai Pampang was merely a creek which originated from the Crocker Range and flowed through settlements including Keningau town.
Mannan added that the Crocker Range was the most important and largest source of water for the west coast and interior districts.
But with incessant rains, its waterholding capacity would have been exceeded and excess water would disperse by flowing into various rivers including Sungai Pampang, he said.
This is the large source of water that caused the current flooding, a repeat of 1996, Mannan said.
The excess flow from surface runoff is a natural phenomenon but building houses on or beside a river is not.
It is a call for death and disaster, Mannan said, dismissing claims that the flooding was due to logging in the catchment area along the Crocker Range.