Poor drainage main cause of flash flood at Taman Pasir in Serian

KUCHING: Inefficient drainage has been identified as the key trigger to the flash flood hitting Taman Pasir and several nearby housing estates in Serian recently.

Local resident Lawrence Chai told The Borneo Post yesterday that soon after their plight was highlighted in this newspaper, four officials from Serian District Council (SDC) visited the site to determine the actual cause of the problem.

“We, residents of this area, are very grateful to the council, especially to Councillor William Rade, Councillor Sunny Kon, Councillor Lawas Musan and Councillor Abd Rahman Abdullah, for responding swiftly to our complaints.

“They went with some of us to check on possible causes of the recent flash flood and discovered that the poor drainage is to be blamed,” he said.

According to Chai, the present system is not able to handle massive volume of water whenever it rains heavily – even for just an hour.

“Whenever there is a downpour, high volume of water would flow from Kampung Kakai, Taman Kakai and Kampung Pasir in addition to that from Serian Hospital and Unaco Shopping Mall, into Taman Pasir, inundating Lorong 4A and other lower areas down to under two-feet (0.6m)

They went with some of us to check on possible causes of the recent flash flood and discovered that the poor drainage is to be blamed.

Lawrence Chai, local resident

of water,” he said, adding that the inspection also discovered that the drains there had not been regularly serviced and maintained.

“Moreover, there are not enough outlets to channel large volume of water out from Lorong 4A. In addition, the drains from Taman Syn Lian Shin to Lorong 4A are crooked, creating sort of a bottleneck for the gushing water,” he said.

Chai said after the walkabout by the councilors and some residents, they suggested that the drains connecting Taman Syn Lian Shin with Lorong 4A be straightened up and further widened.

“Apart from that, we also propose that two more box culverts be constructed at Lorong 5A and Lorong 6A, to allow huge volume (of water) to flow out much more smoothly,” he said.

Chai hoped that the relevant authorities, apart from SDC, would be able to sit down and come up with immediate necessary actions.

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