Continuous heavy rain caused the Binanon River to overflow, triggering multiple landslides and destroying a bridge, cutting off the community from the outside world.
KOTA KINABALU: Despite being stranded and facing dwindling food supplies, teachers at two rural schools in Keningau remain dedicated to their students, ensuring that classes continue as usual.
Fifteen teachers, eight from SK Binanon and seven from SK Mamagun, have been stranded since Thursday (March 21), along with hundreds of villagers, after a landslide blocked the only access road to Keningau town, some 114km away.
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Continuous heavy rain caused the Binanon River to overflow, triggering multiple landslides and destroying a bridge, cutting off the community from the outside world.
“The pupils showed up, so we continued teaching as usual on Friday (March 21),” said Aronniegary Enak @ Patrick Gari, a teacher at SK Binanon, when contacted by The Star on Sunday (March 23).
Aronniegary, 41, is among the stranded teachers who have been rationing their food and water since access to town was cut off.
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“We usually travel to town on weekends to replenish our supplies. With the road cut off, our food stocks have been running low, forcing us to ration until help arrives,” said the Sarawak-born educator, who has been teaching at SK Binanon for 13 years.
Drinking water has also become scarce, he said.
Aronniegary“Our gravity-fed water and rainwater supply is murky, making it unsafe for drinking. We are also running critically low on bottled mineral water "I have fewer than 10 1l bottles of mineral water. I am not sure about the other teachers, but I hope we have enough until the water supply is restored," he added.
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He said they had received warnings about the road conditions, but weak Internet connectivity made it difficult to get real-time updates.
“It was only around noon that we finally received photos and videos showing multiple landslides and a collapsed bridge. "For safety reasons, we decided to stay put until we got more updates,” he said.
This is not the first time he has experienced such an ordeal.
“In 2014, we were stranded for about two weeks. That experience taught me to prepare early, so I alerted the district education office about the risk of another landslide. True enough, it happened again. Thankfully, we were able to get help quickly this time,” he said.
The district education office and the Headmasters’ Council responded by sending food aid and donations to the stranded teachers and villagers.
Despite the situation, Aronniegary has maintained communication with his family in Sarawak, reassuring them that he and his colleagues are safe.
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“We are fortunate to have a solar hybrid system for electricity and Starlink for internet access at SK Binanon. However, SK Mamagun faces frequent power disruptions as they rely on the Sabah grid,” he said.
He noted that heavy rains have continued every evening over the past week, with the worst downpour occurring on Thursday (March 20), further worsening the already fragile road conditions.
“The landslide completely blocked our only access road to town. While the road is now somewhat passable, authorities have warned that it remains too dangerous for travel, even for motorcycles,” he added.
Meanwhile, Sabah Works Minister Datuk Shahelmey Yahya said his ministry is receiving updates on the situation and the affected road and will provide further information to the media on Monday (March 24).
He said each district has a monitoring team under the Public Works Department to assess landslides and road damage.
“If an incident occurs, the district will activate an emergency response and implement a traffic management plan to restore access as soon as possible,” he said after the breaking of fast programme, here, on Sunday.
The roads have been cut off in several areas.
