ALL survivors of the June 5 earthquake were rescued, said Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Masidi Manjun at the State Legislative Assembly sitting yesterday.
“For record purposes, all survivors were rescued. It is 100%. Those who were not saved were already dead. I want to tell you, seeing the bodies myself, I believe nearly all, if not all, died quite instantly.
“So please, to be fair to rescuers, they did their best and their rate of success in rescuing was 100%. That’s a fact,” he reaffirmed.
Masidi said this in response to Klias assemblyman Datuk Seri Panglima Lajim Ukin who questioned the success of the Mount Kinabalu save and rescue operation, which also involved the use of a government helicopter, following the quake during the question and answer session yesterday.
According to the minister, operations involving the helicopter on that day was highly affected by the wind, which had deterred the resuce of stranded climbers on the mountain.
“It is good that YB has asked this question so that we can all understand. For your information, three attempts were made to land the helicopter during the rescue operation that day but we were unable to do because of the wind issue,” he explained while adding that the factor would play into effect after the altitude of 3,000 meters.
“Our strategy on that day was to use the helicopter at first but it couldn’t land (under the conditions). Secondly, (the strategy) to drop food and warm clothing materials with the assumption that (stranded) climbers may have to spend the night on the mountain. The helicopter dropped supplies, however, they ended up about half a kilometre away from the target due to the wind. So finally, the third option was to use the expertise of those already on the mountain.
“Do not forget, until the night of June 5, the stones (from the mountain) were still falling down. People from below could not penetrate the 6.3km to 6.8km route that had been buried,” he said.
In addition, he pointed out that SMART (Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team) and everyone involved would be affected by air mountain sickness at certain levels of the altitude.
“Everyone will be sick. Among the symptoms is that you will have a splitting headache, which means you may not reach the top.
“This is what happened. If I may summarize, it is impossible to use a helicopter for safety reasons alone. It was not intended to be that way. It was not because we were careless or we simply were not prepared for it. Helicopters could not land,” he said.
“Secondly, the no fog period was between between 6am to 7.30am. The incident occurred at 7.15am. So the fog was already in at that (operational) time. The next (no fog) time, was about 5pm to 6pm on the same day but the wind was very strong then.
“The route was blocked, broken … stones falling down like rain. We did not want to sacrifice lives. Eventually the only option that was available for us was to make use of the expertise available on the mountain. I hope this explanation can clear any allegations that we did not use our expertise willfully in our efforts to save them above (Mount Kinabalu),” concluded Masidi.