KLANG: Loud siren wails went off as early as 6am when the overflowing waters of Sungai Keramat began flooding Kampung Sementa at Batu 5, Jalan Kapar, here, for the third consecutive day Tuesday.
By 7am, the small coastal village just north of Klang was inundated by the flood waters brought on by high tide.
The water rose faster than the day before and by 7.30am, several roads to the village became inaccessible.
Ten minutes later, it started to rain.
It would have been worse, had it not been for the temporary measures taken over the weekend - recently built bunds and hastily gathered sand bags managed to slow the first wave of floods at dawn on Sunday.
That was the day a portion of a bund collapsed, causing water from the 5.6m-high tide to flood into more than 10 houses, damaging eight cars.
The second round of floods on Monday left the village in 5.7m-high flood waters.
Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali said Monday evening that 4,000 sand bags to temporarily strengthen a bund had been installed by the Drainage and Irrigation Department to prevent flood waters from flowing over borrow pits and into nearby villages.
Selangor Disaster Management Committee's coordinator for Sementa Mohd Azmi Mat Sangir said the temporary measures had somehow abated the full impact of the flood waters.
“The repaired bund helped to withstand the high tide for about half an hour before it gave way again.
“This bought us some time as the tide then started receding, taking with it the flood waters.
“Compared to the day before, the water level was lower and fewer places were flooded," he said.
At 9am, when the flood waters began to recede, 26 evacuation centres had been activated, with 482 victims from 115 families being displaced.
The Dewan Kg Tok Muda evacuation centre in Kapar here had the most number of evacuees - 236.
This was followed by 63 at the Dewan Sg Air Tawar in Sabak Bernam and 39 at the Dewan Dewan Dato Ahmad Razali here.
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