PASIR MAS: After enduring annual floods brought about by the northeast monsoon season, residents here are employing their creativity to adapt to the disaster, ensuring they can carry on with their daily life as usual.
A resident of Kampung Lubok Gong, Rantau Panjang, whose home is about 35m from Sungai Golok, built a special walkway to enable his family to walk from their low-lying house to a higher roadway without wading through floodwaters.
Rosdi Abdullah, 62, said that the elevated walkway, almost 2m high, was completed in mid-November. It took two weeks of construction with help from his children and son-in-law.
"I've built this walkway every year since 2018 for my family's convenience and dismantled it after the floods receded. This year, I plan to leave it intact and reinforce the base with concrete to make it sturdier for future flood seasons," he said.
"The structure uses scaffolding poles as pillars, similar to those used in building construction, and wooden planks to create the walkway," he shared with Bernama.
Another resident from Kampung Tersang, Mohd Hirwan Faizal Che Rajiuon, 42, built a mini floating raft to safeguard his bird-rearing business from flood-related losses.
"Before the floods, I constructed a covered raft measuring over two square metres using barrels, metal, and wood to house more than 30 birds, including species like merbok (zebra doves) and 'merbah jambul', valued at approximately RM10mil," he said.
"Thankfully, the platform saved all the birds, and none were lost. When the water levels rose, my family and I relocated to a temporary relief centre, leaving the birds in their cages on the raft,” he said.
"On regular days, the birds are housed in a hut in front of my house. If left there during the floods, they would not have survived," he added.
However, Mohd Hirwan admitted he was unable to rescue other livestock, such as chickens, as the water levels rose too rapidly. – Bernama
