More than 4,000 flood victims in relief centres

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KOTA KINABALU: A total of 4,512 flood victims have been evacuated to 22 relief centres in Beaufort and Tenom.

There are 2,549 victims from 500 families housed at 17 centres in Tenom while Beaufort’s five centres are sheltering 1,963 victims comprising 613 families.

A spokesman from the Tenom District Floods Operations Room said that 29 villages there were still affected by the floods.

Whereas in Beaufort, District Natural Disaster Committee chairman Mohd Sahid Othman said the number of victims were expected to increase as the water levels in the villages were still rising, with only Beaufort town showing a slight dip.

He said 138 victims from 40 families, who lived between Kampung Batu 60 and Batu 63, could not be relocated yet due to strong currents in Sungai Padas but had managed to move to higher ground and were being monitored.

He appealed for donations of items such as blankets, pillows, clothes and other necessities to help the victims.

Meanwhile, Sabah Education director said 15 schools in Tenom, 19 in Beaufort and two in Keningau involving more than 6,000 students were still closed due to the floods.

On a related development, the Umno/Barisan Nasional (BN) Welfare Bureau will carry out all humanitarian and natural disaster missions in the country replacing the 1Malaysia Putera Club, said its chairman Datuk Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim.

Abdul Azeez, who is also the Putera Club president, said the club would only focus on such missions abroad.

“Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has ordered the Welfare Bureau’s first mission of assisting the flood victims in Sabah,” he told reporters after visiting the Dewan Sri Antanom relief centre in Tenom here yesterday.

According to Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Hamza Taib, who also visited the affected area, the third wave of floods in the state has claimed three lives, including an eight-year-old boy found drowned in Kampung Lubak, Beaufort Friday evening. — Bernama