ALOR SETAR: The S.O.S. mission resembled a lightning raid as a total of 310 Malaysians stranded by floods in Hatyai are being evacuated from the half-submerged town with the help of a Malaysian volunteer team as of this afternoon.
Sungai Petani Volunteer Fire Team chairman, Leong Beng Tat said they were all taken on three trailer trucks to the town of Danok, about one hour from Hatyai in clear weather, near the Malaysia-Thailand border.
“All of them are being evacuated to Danok, but our journey is quite slow because of the large number of passengers and the road conditions that are still flooded in several areas.
“After sending these Malaysians to Danok, the trailer lorry will return to Hatyai to pick up other Malaysians, this round trip will take four hours,” he said when contacted by Bernama here today.
According to him, this morning his volunteer party was flooded with more than 1,000 phone calls from desperate Malaysians asking for help to evacuate them from the deluged township.
Leong said the flood situation in Hatyai was still critical with the chest-high water level in some areas reaching 1.5 metres (five feet), making it difficult to rescue stranded Malaysians.
He said the mission to bring back Malaysians stranded in Hatyai would continue until it was completed even though his rescue party faced various challenges.
“We have 30 volunteers and brought with us 10 vehicles and eight boats. We will try to bring all those stranded out of Hatyai, many cried out about not getting food and so on, we too feel sorry,” he said.
He hoped the Malaysian government could take immediate action to speed up the process of evacuating Malaysians stranded in the town. – BERNAMA
