Three more workers still missing

Stunned: Nur Azizah (left) and Wakrini

GEORGE TOWN: With each passing hour, Indonesian Nur Azizah is praying for a miracle that she could still see her husband who remains missing with two others after a landslide hit their kongsi home in Jalan Bukit Kukus, Paya Terubong.

The 24-year-old arrived here three months ago to be with her husband Subaeri, 34, who came here in February this year.

Their two-year-old daughter is in Sula­wesi.

“Whatever it is, I have accepted everything that happened as fate.

“I hope and pray that my husband will be found, be it dead or alive,” she said when met at the Penang Hospital mortuary yesterday.

Recalling the incident on Friday, Nur Azizah said she was in the house while Subaeri was watching television outside the wooden hut near the construction site.

“The rain had just stopped. All of a sudden, the house tumbled down the slope and the next thing I knew, I was covered in mud up to the waist. Five men pulled me out from the rubble but we could not find Subaeri,” she said.

It is learnt that 13 workers were involved in the catastrophe, which occurred after heavy rains hit the state from Thursday afternoon, causing a landslide in the container and kongsi area of the Bukit Kukus paired road construction site at about 1.30pm on Friday.

Seven bodies had since been recovered from the site as at 5.30pm yesterday.

The latest were Bangladeshi workers Mithu Hossain, 30, Mustak Hossain, 25, and Md Jalil, 34, whose bodies were pulled out from the rubble yesterday.

Earlier, the search and rescue team recovered the body of Bangladesh worker Aktarul, 35, a female Myanmar worker Khin Aye Kaing, 33, and Indonesian workers Samsul Asman, 19, and Bahtiar, 36.

Three injured workers were rescued. They are Bangladeshi Sha­mim, 24, and Indonesians Wakrini, 36, and Nora Zizah, 24.

Besides Subaeri, the search and rescue team is still searching for Bangladeshi workers Ujal and Md Rahazzan.

Meanwhile, Bangladeshi Ikram Hossain said he should have met his brother Mustak for lunch after Friday prayers.

“Probably he would still be alive if I had met him for lunch. He would be with me then.

“But I could not make it,” said the 30-year-old when met at the construction site yesterday.

Ikram, who works at a cement factory, said he had never failed to have lunch with his brother after Friday prayers.

“I knew something bad had happened when he didn’t pick up my call,” he said.

At the Penang Hospital mortuary, family members of Samsul and Bahtiar claimed their bodies.

They will be sent home to south-east Sulawesi by flight followed by a 10-hour journey to their village in Wasilomata.