Wet weekend for Kuching as heavy downpour hits city

KUCHING: For thousands of residents in Kuching, Padawan and Serian, it has been another tough weekend of floods and cleaning up.

For the third time this month, the state capital and surrounding areas experienced heavy floods.

On Saturday, they came without warning and created major havoc.

From midnight, it rained more than 300mm – Kuching’s drainage is designed for 150-180mm of rain, while the average rain day is 90mm.

The oldest parts of the city were worst affected by the sudden downpour. At Kai Joo Lane, the waters were waist-high.

Even the Sarawak General Hospital was flooded for the first time ever.

“Some stock at the pharmacy was submerged. We are assessing now. The affected drugs will be discarded,” said Assistant Public Health Minister Datuk Dr Jerip Susil in an interview yesterday.

“When the floods came on Satur­day morning, we shut down all the lifts except one, which was re­­served for emergencies and movement to the operating theatre.”

During the height of the floods, electricity to residential estates in­­clu­ding Tabuan Dayak was halted as a safety precaution.

Large sections of the inner city were in a mass clean-up, with small businesses like grocery stores not taking any chances.

“Because of past experiences, we told everyone, even before Chinese New Year, to be ready for the entire month of February,” said Datuk Wee Hong Seng, who headed the In­­dia Street pedestrian mall ma­­nagement committee.

He added that the council had begun designing new drainage for areas near the bus terminal at Jalan Masjid and Padang Merdeka, and would begin the tender process in April.

At 8am yesterday, the Fire and Rescue Department opened two relief shelters, accommodating 311 evacuees from Serian, which is about 60km from here.