Sabah braces for outbreak of disease
Sabah braces for outbreak of disease
KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia (AFP): Malaysia's eastern Sabah state is bracing for an outbreak of water-borne diseases after its water supply was damaged in a tropical storm that left 141 people dead, including at least 82 Indonesians immigrants, and up to 200 missing.
Health Minister Chua Jui Meng on Sunday placed six flood-hit districts in Sabah on cholera alert, while all medical and health authorities are directed to mobilize teams to take preventive measures.
Water contamination following the flash floods also threatens an outbreak of typhoid and diarrhea, Chua warned.
Officials at the main search-and-rescue operations center in this state capital said they had not yet received any reports of cholera.
Meanwhile, 300 rescue workers yesterday resumed their search at dawn for victims buried in the debris left behind Thursday by tropical storm Greg, which ripped the west coast of Sabah.
The death toll climbed to 141 with the discovery of six more bodies Sunday, and about 200 were still unofficially reported missing in the country's worst natural disaster. Most of the victims were Indonesian immigrants.
"Some of the bodies could have been swept into the sea," an official said, referring to riverside settlements badly damaged during the storm and strong currents in the adjacent rivers.
A total of 17,000 people from 3,825 homes in 226 villages on Sabah's west coast were affected by the storm. Three thousand victims are housed at 11 evacuation centers, an official said.
"No one has been found alive today. The search is going on," the official told AFP.
The timber town of Keningau, 130 kilometers southwest of Kota Kinabalu bore the brunt of tropical storm Greg's fury.
Keningau also faces the highest risk of being struck by disease because it has no clean treated water.
In a separate development, Malaysian police in Kuala Lumpur said yesterday it will deport 13 Indonesians who were detained for trespassing in foreign embassies in their attempts to seek political asylum.
Ghazali Yaakub, the police internal security and public order director, told the New Sunday Times the 13, from Indonesia's Aceh province, were illegal immigrants and would not receive special treatment.
"The Acehnese immigrants have not only entered our country and contravened our laws but they have also trespassed into the compounds of foreign missions. Once they break the law, we have to take action," he said.
The 13 were among 40 Indonesians who Wednesday tried to enter the embassies of Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States to seek political asylum.
Most were from Aceh and claimed they had been tortured by the Indonesian army because of their links to the separatist Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh) movement. They said they would be persecuted by Indonesian authorities if repatriated.