KUALA LUMPUR: Floods triggered by torrential monsoon rains in Malaysia forced almost 14,000 people to flee their homes and seek shelter at relief centres, the official Bernama news agency said yesterday.
Heavy rain coinciding with high tide flooded hundreds of homes in three northeastern states — Terengganu, Pahang and Kelantan — with some 13,746 people moved to evacuation centres, it said amid forecasts of more downpours.
Bernama said the flood situation was deteriorating as the number of evacuees continued to rise and some major roads in Pahang were closed as rivers burst their banks.
Muhammad Helmi Abdullah, the meteorological department’s weather forecast director, warned that there could be more rain in Terengganu, Pahang and southern Johor state in the next few days.
“We expect intermittent rain to heavy showers in (some parts of) the states,” he said, adding that the northeast monsoon season would last until March and the affected states could experience at least three more “heavy rain” episodes.
Part of the $108m Paya Peda irrigation dam wall under construction in Terengganu had to be broken to release pressure, according to Bernama.
The move caused flash floods in some parts of the oil-rich state.
Bernama also reported that a 36-year-old woman had drowned in Terengganu after she slipped and fell into a rain-swollen river on Tuesday while fishing in a waterlogged area. No other deaths from the floods have been reported so far.
5.8 magnitude quake shakes Indonesia
Jakarta: An earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale jolted Seluma (southwest), Bengkulu, Indonesia’s News Agency (Antara) reported.
According to the Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics Agency, the epicentre of the earthquake was 431km southwest of Seluma, Bengkulu, 477km southwest of Bengkulu city, Bengkulu, and 654km southwest of Jakarta (Southern Latitude — 7.86 degrees and Western Longitude — 101.16 degrees).
Experts believed the earthquake would not trigger a tsunami.
Agencies
