MIRI – The ongoing landas season in Sarawak’s remote interior is continuing to leave trails of destruction, not least through devastating floods.
In recent days, two subdistricts have seen an enormous rise in water levels that have caused major bridges to fall apart, cutting off hundreds of native folk.
The landas is equivalent to the monsoon that hits the east coast states of Peninsular Malaysia. Torrential rain and flash floods are common during the peak of these rainy seasons.
In Limbang’s Medamit subdistrict in the northernmost corner of Sarawak, the Sg Setuan bridge was swept away after it collapsed into raging waters yesterday.
The Limbang district office said Public Works Department (PWD) engineers have been alerted and are being deployed to the site today.
“The Sg Setuan bridge is the only bridge linking villagers from Medamit with Medihit,” the office said.
“Access from one side to the other has been cut off due to the bridge collapse.”
“Heavy rain since Sunday have caused the river to rise fast,” it added.
“The flash floods that occurred caused the bridge foundation to give way. The whole bridge collapsed into the river and was washed away.”
In the Murum subdistrict deep within Belaga in central Sarawak, the Sg Long Tirat bridge also gave way due to flash floods over the past week.
The site is located deep in the upper reaches of the Murum Dam area, about 500km inland from the nearest large town of Bintulu.
Villagers of the Rumah Raymund longhouse said the flash floods occurred last week, and they had only discovered the bridge had collapsed when they attempted to travel to the other side after the waters receded.
Murum assemblyman Liwan Lagang said in a social media post that the river is at least 30m wide.
“Luckily, there were no villagers there when the extraordinary flash floods happened that swept away the iron bridge,” he said.
Liwan said PWD workers are opening up a temporary land access route to enable stranded residents to travel out.
He said a permanent Bailey bridge will be constructed soon over the river.
Sarawak is entering the tail-end of the landas season that began in early December. – The Vibes, February 16, 2021
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