Sabah hit by hailstones during thunderstorm

One of the smaller hailstones that fell in the Sabah interior district of Tambunan during a thunderstorm on Sunday afternoon.

KOTA KINABALU: A mid-afternoon thunderstorm in the interior Tambunan district brought with it thumb-sized hailstones.

Though no injuries were reported following the incident on Sunday, the hailstones had damaged the windshield of a resident’s four-wheel-drive vehicle.

The hailstones began falling soon after the storm started at about 3pm, said Sekolah Menengah St Martins Tambunan teacher Ryan Gomis Gotil.

Gomis, who was at the school’s workshop when the rain began, thought it was just the usual deluge until he started hearing loud clattering sounds on the zinc roof.

“When I looked outside, I saw some white stuff on the ground and realised that these were hailstones,” he said.

Gomis said the rain and hailstones had been preceded with strong winds, lightning and thunder.

He said following a check with other Tambunan folk showed the hailstones had fallen in certain parts of the district such as Sunsuron, Piasau, Gagaroan, Tombotuan and Tampasak.

This was the fourth time Gomis had had experienced hailstones, twice in nearby Keningau district in the 1980s, and when serving as a teacher at Kampung Nambayan, also in Tambunan, in 1992.