Villagers escape floods on digger as 28,000 evacuated
Malaysian villagers were evacuated in an excavator while others swam through deep waters yesterday as the number of people forced from their homes by floods rose to more than 28,000, with at least four reported dead.
Flooding hits the country’s east coast during the rainy season annually and regularly results in mass evacuations, but people in some areas say this year’s are the worst in decades.
The worst-hit state is Pahang, where over 21,000 have been evacuated in recent days, with almost 4,000 forced from their homes in Johor and thousands more in other states, according to the social welfare department.
Four deaths have so far been reported in Pahang and Johor.
Yesterday, a group villagers was evacuated from the small settlement of Kampung Sementeh in Pahang, which has been cut off by the floods, in an excavator, a journalist at the scene said.
A pregnant woman and a sick elderly lady were among a handful of residents sitting in the raised shovel of the machine as it drove along a flooded road, while others hung off the cab.
Residents of another cut-off village swam through floodwaters about 1.8 metres deep as they sought to obtain supplies of fresh water and food.
“It has been raining for three days, food is running low, some shops are closed,” factory worker Juzaili Mat Zain, 44, who helped organise the excavator evacuation from Kampung Sementeh, said.
Electricity had been cut off in the village and some houses were inundated, he added.
Resident Ahmad Saad Mohamad, 48, said it was the area’s worst floods for four decades.
“It has been three days and there has been no government aid.”