Straits Times 5 Jan 08;
Schools shut, thousands evacuated and lives lost due to heavy, non-stop rain
KUALA LUMPUR: - The flooding situation in the Malaysian states of Kelantan, Pahang and Sabah is getting worse.
Some 30,000 students in 38 secondary and primary schools in Kelantan will not be able to attend their first day of school today as their schools were closed after floods hit six districts in the state.
State Education director Mohd Ghazali Ab Rahman said 'the Kelantan Education Department has directed schools in the affected areas to be shut to avoid any untoward incident'.
Several locations in the town of Kota Baru have been inundated since 2pm yesterday after heavy rain in the past three days caused some rivers to overflow its banks. A total of 623 people have been evacuated since last Saturday.
The State Drainage and Irrigation Department reported that the water levels at four main rivers in Kelantan have risen above the danger mark and residents had to be evacuated. At three other rivers, the water levels are above the alert mark - just below the danger level.
Conditions in Pahang also continued to deteriorate yesterday as the number of evacuees jumped to 2,514, from 246 last Saturday.
A spokesman for the Pahang police flood operations room said Kuantan district had the highest number of evacuees at 1,386, while 919 people had been evacuated in the Pekan district, 128 in Maran, 48 in Raub and 33 in Cameron Highlands.
The spokesman also said that two landslides occurred in Cameron Highlands last Saturday but the affected areas had been cleared up and stretches of road reopened to traffic.
In Sabah, 12 villages and a town in Kota Marudu were evacuated following non-stop rain since last Friday afternoon.
A team comprising personnel from the fire and rescue department, district office, police and members of the People's Volunteer Corps (Rela) assisted in the evacuation exercise which started at noon last Saturday.
'They were evacuated to community halls and selected safe homes but so far we do not have the latest information on how many villagers were involved,' said a Kota Marudu fire station officer.
The officer, who declined to be named, said the rain was expected to continue not only in Kota Marudu but also in Kudat and Pitas.
Meanwhile in Vietnam, at least five people were killed and three others went missing when unexpected floods hit the central part of the country.
Four men were swept away in floods and a woman drowned when her small fishing boat sank in a swollen river as heavy rain hit Quang Nam and Quang Ngai provinces, said the National Flood and Storm Control Committee in Hanoi.
More than 5,000 houses were destroyed or damaged and almost 75,000ha of crops were under water. According to the state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA), 20 to 30cm of rain fell in recent days and caused flooding of up to 80cm.
BERNAMA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
