Over 150 hill slopes in S’gor classified as high risk: exco

AMPANG – The Selangor government has identified over 150 hill slopes under its purview in the high-risk category.

State Infrastructure and Agriculture Committee chairman Izham Hashim said these high-risk slopes were identified after the torrential rain and floods in December, with the majority of them situated in the Gombak and Hulu Langat districts.

“Although there are 150 high-risk slopes, we will need to evaluate the severity of each slope.

“We will then work on the stabilisation works, we’ll have to find the best solution,” he told reporters at the landslide site in Taman Bukit Permai, Ampang this evening.

However, Izham said there was no indication of landslide activity at Taman Bukit Permai before the incident, which claimed four lives, occurred.

The Pandan Indah assemblyman said the incident, which took place last evening, took him by surprise as the affected area was not categorised as high risk.

“To me, it’s one of the few incidents where we have not seen any indication.

“Normally, we can observe the initial (soil) movement. But there were no signs on this hill.

“We would have evacuated the residents immediately if there was an indication. But since there wasn’t any, we did not evacuate them prior to the landslide.”

He stressed that an earlier incident involving boulders that fell from a nearby hill at Taman Bukit Permai Apartment, Pandan Indah on Wednesday is not related to this landslide.

The one-time occurrence of falling boulders, he said, would not trigger an immediate landslide.

“Based on my experience, boulders would fall for a long period of time before a landslide actually occurs.”

The landslide claimed four lives while another victim escaped with light injuries in an incident that also affected 15 homes and 10 vehicles.

The SAR operation for the five victims began as soon as nine firemen from the Pandan Fire and Rescue station arrived at the scene after receiving a distress call at 5.54pm.

The first victim, an 84-year-old man, was pulled out at 6.54pm. He escaped with minor injuries but his wife, however, was found dead at 7.53pm before her body was pulled out at 9.15pm.

About an hour and a half after that, at 10.58pm, the body of the third victim, a male resident, was extricated from the debris.

The SAR operation ended at 2am after Ampang Jaya district police chief Mohamad Farouk Eshak confirmed that rescuers had found the bodies of the last two victims, both males, one of whom was a worker of Pengurusan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd.

Their bodies were found at 12.46am and 1.59am respectively. – The Vibes, March 11, 2022