Residents can go home when area declared safe
KUALA LUMPUR: The Hulu Selangor District Council will wait for the Public Works Department (PWD) and Lands and Mines Department to complete safety assessments of the Serendah disaster zone before allowing the 350 affected residents to return home.
Hulu Selangor district officer Mohd Fauzi Mohd Yatima said the full reports from the departments were expected to be ready next week.
“If the area is deemed safe by the reports and the departments give us the all-clear, we will let the 62 families go home once the road is completed in two to three weeks.
“I urge evacuees to be patient. We understand that they want to go home, but safety is our priority,” he said during a site visit yesterday.
Fauzi said the reports were crucial because the location of the water source had to be determined, besides the volume and the proximity to the homes.
The departments are detailing a 600m radius area in Serendah that the authorities have classified as a red zone, following a landslide on Saturday, which formed a 7m-deep sinkhole and collapsed the access road to Taman Idaman.
The reports would include soil surveys that cover its movement, surface water, structural forensics, resistivity and borehole probes.
Fauzi, who is the de facto coordinator for disasters in the district, said PWD had built a gabion wall to retain the slope fringing the sinkhole.
It was reported that the Selangor government had allocated RM5 million to rebuild roads and other remedial works.
Hulu Selangor district police chief Superintendent R. Supramaniam said the red zone and the buffer area next to SRA Serendah were still off limits to the public.
“We have placed a guard there and he will record the names of those who enter,” he said, adding that water supply had been restored to 96 per cent of the affected area.
At press time, Kampung Orang Asli, Pusat Serenti and Desa Melor were the only areas without water.
being carried out in The authorities will allow residents to safety assessments are completed. Pic by Zulfadhli Zulkifli
Serendah, yesterday.