MIRI: Timber companies are being sought by the Public Works Department (PWD) to help transport fresh water to remote regions facing a water shortage due to the El Nino hot spell.
These companies have big logging trucks that can deliver large amounts of fresh water from treatment plants, said state PWD director Zuraimi Sabki.
“We need to transport a lot of water from the plants in the urban centres to send to settlements scattered in different isolated regions, including the highlands in Bakelalan.
“We need huge trucks to transport the water containers through rugged terrain.
“My district engineers are coordinating with these timber companies on the ground now,” he said when asked on the latest developments.
Two weeks ago, rural folks in Bakelalan in the northern-most Lawas district sent an SOS as the rivers had dried up, it has not rained there for more than two months.
The rivers are their only source of water for cooking, drinking and washing.
A week ago, the state welfare department and PWD rushed mechanical water pumps to the rural outposts of Bakelalan to try to collect whatever water that was left from the rivers and streams that had not dried up totally.
State Welfare, Women and Family Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah said her ministry was working with the PWD to assist those affected.
In Bakelalan, over 2,000 villagers were now without clean water, said Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) deputy president Datuk Nelson Balang Rining.
Balang, who is SPDP chairman for the Bakelalan division, said yesterday that among those affected were children from three schools – SK Long Sukang, SK Long Semadoh and SK Bakelalan. The Bakelalan highlands are in the northern-most mountains of Sarawak near the Kalimantan border.
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