A WOMAN has been confirmed dead while several others remain unaccounted for after landslides tore through Kota Kinabalu and Papar on Monday.
This brings to two persons the death toll after a week of disasters that has already left Sabah struggling with floods, power cuts and mass evacuations.
The dead woman was pulled from the rubble at Bukit CenderaKasih in Kota Kinabalu after part of the hillside gave way, burying a row of homes in mud and trash.
Fire and Rescue Department officers said eleven people were trapped when the slope collapsed.
Five have been pulled out alive, but six others are still missing beneath the wreckage.
“We found the victim beneath collapsed structures mixed with household waste.
“Our teams are still combing through the site with K9 units to locate the remaining victims,” said the search and rescue commander Wilfred Sulai.
Rescue operations are being carried out under heavy rain, with police, civil defence and health workers roped in to support the firemen.
In Papar, the situation is no less desperate.
At Kampung Mook, three houses were flattened by a landslide, leaving at least two people trapped.
A video from the site, now circulating widely, shows a man pleading for heavy machinery.
“I would pay any amount to anyone who can lend an excavator,” he cried in a raw appeal believed to have come from a relative as family members remained buried under the mud.
Another slide struck Kampung Maragang Tuntul, trapping three people inside a collapsed house.
“Our priority is to get to the victims as quickly and as safely as possible,” said Papar fire chief Rozlan Osman.
These tragedies come on the heels of a wider crisis. Seven districts have been affected by the incident including, Papar, Penampang, Beaufort, Kota Belud and others.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor had also announced that the Malaysia Day Celebrations planned at Padang Merdeka in Kota Kinabalu tomorrow is now cancelled due to the disasters.
Heavy downpours over the past week have ripped up hillsides, submerged villages and crippled key infrastructure.
On Saturday, a 275kV transmission tower collapsed in Penampang, cutting electricity to six east coast districts, Sandakan, Lahad Datu, Kinabatangan, Kunak, Semporna and Beluran.
SESB said repairs are under way but large parts of the east coast remain without stable supply.
Roads too have been battered.
The Public Works Department has logged 89 incidents since 8 September, including landslides, flash floods and road collapses.
As of Sunday, 26 roads remained impassable, 10 in Penampang, six in Kota Kinabalu, five in Beaufort, four in Papar and one in Kota Belud.
The human toll is rising. The Disaster Management Committee said 428 people from 115 households have been displaced, many now crammed into four relief centres across Beaufort, Penampang and Tawau.
In Penampang alone, 201 residents from 14 villages have had to leave their homes, while Beaufort saw 168 evacuated from eight flood-hit kampungs.
The Cenderakasih area, where Monday’s fatality was recorded, is a tightly packed hillside settlement where houses cling to slopes without proper drainage or slope protection.
Such unplanned development has long been flagged as a risk, but little has been done to mitigate it.
Monday’s death brings the confirmed toll to two in just a week, after a 97-year-old man was killed in Kampung Sarapung, Penampang, when his home was buried by another landslide. - September 15, 2025
