Villagers grapple with worst flood in 31 years

From roads to waterways: Residents of Kampung Wakaf Stan boarding a boat in order to get to the nearby temporary relief centre. — Bernama

TUMPAT: The floods caused by continuous rain sweeping across Tumpat district since Saturday have been described as the worst in 31 years by people living there.

A resident of Kampung Menjual, Nur Fatihah Abdul Rahim, 31, said she had not expected the continuous rain in the past two days to cause her home to be flooded by more than a metre.

“The last time a ‘big flood’ happened in the village was in 2014, but only a few houses were affected, especially in low-lying areas.

“This flood incident is the worst in 31 years because the current was quite strong and my house was flooded.

“My family immediately moved to the temporary evacuation centre at SK Kubang Batang at 2am because I didn’t want anything untoward to happen,” she told Bernama.

A villager from Kampung Berangan Hujung, Nor Azuralizma Ibrahim @ Salleh, 40, said she was shocked as she did not expect the water to rise so quickly in such a short time.

She said her house compound was flooded at 11pm on Sunday night, but the water level reached chest level three hours later.

She and her husband Mohd Asri Awang, 52, had to move to the Sekolah Berangan 1 flood relief centre.

“We waded through the flood for a kilometre with our children to save ourselves and we only took important documents with us,” she said.

In JERTIH, about 20 food traders at the Jertih market here could only watch as their stocks and equipment were swept away by strong floodwaters yesterday morning.

Coconut milk seller Azizul Abdul Aziz, 40, said after they were informed of the flooding at 6.30am, they rushed to the market to save their goods but could not due to the rapid rise of the water level.

“We raced here to save the goods such as salted fish and fish crackers,, but had to leave because the current was getting stronger and the water was rising so rapidly,” he told Bernama.

Zainab Zakaria, 43, said the current flood was worse than the massive floods that occurred in 2014 based on the 2m-deep floodwaters and strong currents.

“We didn’t expect the floods to be this bad,” she added.