439 villagers suffer brunt of inter-monsoon floods
BALING: Some 439 villagers in 94 homes suffered the brunt of floods due to heavy rains which started in the early hours of the inter-monsoon season.
According to the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia), the south-east monsoon ended on Thursday and the stormy inter-monsoon period has kicked in.
Almost like clockwork, a heavy downpour pounded Baling at midnight, flooding eight villages, submerging the affected homes in up to 60cm of water.
Baling District Disaster Management secretariat was on high alert and when rains kept lashing at 6.30am, two Civil Defence officers and 17 personnel were deployed to the villages.
Baling Civil Defence Force officer Lt Mohd Faizol Ab Aziz, however, said the storm eased up and stopped by 9.30am, and no flood relief centres were opened.
MetMalaysia warned on Thursday that the inter-monsoon period would last till early November, bringing short but violent storms in the evenings and nights to all states in the west coast states in the peninsular, western Sabah and western and central Sarawak.
Come early November, the inter-monsoon period will end and the north-west monsoon will start, ending the storm risk in these parts but bringing the annual floods to east coast states.
“We advise the public to be careful this season and keep updated on the weather situation,” the department added.
Last year, the end of the inter-monsoon period brought one of the worst flooding in living memory to Penang, Kedah and Perlis.
A storm that raged on from Nov 4 to 5 last year brought so much rain that some homes in Seberang Prai were submerged in 3m of water.
Penang’s Ayer Itam dam’s rain gauge recorded 315mm of rainfall, the highest in its history.
After the rain stopped, the flood did not subside for three days because water from the mountains kept rivers full.