23 people dead and 19 missing in mudslide
23 people dead and 19 missing in mudslide
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): As the death toll in a mudslide at a Malaysian aborigine village rose to 23 yesterday, a geomancer called for a halt to hilltop tree-clearing, believing the avalanche to be the work of a disturbed "dragon."
Police said 19 others, mainly children, were still missing in the mudslide that swept down Kinjang mountain and smashed into the Pos Dipang aborigine settlement in northern Perak state last Thursday.
"The body of an unidentified 10-year old child -- the 23rd victim -- was found this afternoon (0600 GMT)," police in nearby Kampar town monitoring the disaster said by telephone.
Of the 23 bodies recovered, 21 have been identified, among them eight women, seven men, four children -- all aborigines -- as well as two ethnic Chinese, a man and a seven-month-old girl.
The victims were in 30 haphazardly-built wooden houses swept away by the torrent of logs, mud and water into the river at the foot of the hill.
The Pos Dipang village, tucked away in remote hilly terrain about 200 meters above sea level and only acessible by four-wheel-drive vehicles, houses 1,500 inhabitants.
As a 290-member team resumed searching for possible survivors early yesterday, geomancer Reverend R. Yong, a regular "feng shui" (geomancy) columnist of the Star daily newspaper called on the government to put an immediate halt to tree-clearing on the hill.
An injured "dragon was venting its anger," Yong said, adding that "the red mudflow from the Kinjang range signified the dragon's blood."
Some aborigines in the ill-fated village had told authorities on Saturday they believed the landslide was caused by "the awakening of a giant dragon which lives deep in the hill."
Environmentalists and non-government organisations said Sunday such a theory could not be dismissed, going by the signs of erosion on the Kinjang mountain-top due to uncontrolled land- clearing and interference with nature.
The presence of logged timber at the disaster site indicated there was still logging activity, said Colin Nicholas, coordinator for the non-governmental Center for Orang Asli (Aborigine) Concerns.
"This is strange because tree-felling activities should have ended a long time ago if the forestry department had issued the last logging licence in the 1980s as it has claimed," Nicholas said.
The avalanche left in its wake a 15-kilometer trail of destruction damaging two bridges across the river and cutting off the main road to the settlement.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who had ordered a probe into the tragedy, slammed the "finger-pointing," saying on Saturday Malaysians should be more compassionate and "think of how to help the victims instead of searching for people to blame."
Police said it was the worst landslide tragedy after a hillstop collapse along the road to the Genting Highlands casino- resort in central Pahang state in June last year.
The Genting landslip buried 15 vehicles and killed 21 people, including two Japanese, four Philippine nationals and four Singaporeans.