KUALA KANGSAR, Dec 27 — A deluge more severe than any in more than decades caught villagers here unprepared despite flood warnings issued on Tuesday morning.

According to residents of villages in the area, all were left scrambling even after the caution as none were expecting waters some 5 metres deep to sweep through the area by the time the sun had set on Tuesday.

Many here lived through a severe flood in 1993, the worst in recent memory, but even that pales in comparison to the current inundation, they recounted.

“We have flooding in 1993 but there was no massive evacuation because the water was not as high as this time,” Badri Mat Isa, the head of Kampung Sayong Tebing, told Malay Mail Online.

Kampung Sayong Tebing is one of the worst hit areas here, with whole houses fully submerged in the flood waters; fortunately, all villagers managed to get to safety with no fatalities.

The villagers were evacuated from the small riverside village from the afternoon of Tuesday but some, whose houses were on higher ground, chose to stay till late at night before they were also forced to leave for the flood relief centre at SK Sayong.

Housewife Sardatul Norsuhaidah Ahmad Isa, 27, said they heard the flood warning in the morning so her family spent the day moving as many important items as possible to the upper floor of their house.

“We didn't expect the water to go up, so even though we were on standby to evacuate, we thought we don't have to leave. But by 2am, the water was getting too high and we were forced to leave,” she said.

The water at her house receded yesterday so she and her father-in-law, Zulkipli Ahmad, were back home cleaning up the sludge coating the entire ground floor of their house.

“All our furniture and electrical items that we couldn't carry upstairs earlier were destroyed,” she said as she scrubbed stacks of plates and cutleries in a large pail of soapy water.

Zulkipli said he has never seen the water rise so high and quickly even though he has lived here for 30 years.

“Even in 1993, the flood waters rose up to the road in front of our house, it did not enter the house, so when there was a flood warning on Tuesday, we never expected it to be so bad that the water rose almost up to the second storey of my house,” he said.

Despite the shock, the ordeal appeared to be far from over.

Even as the two, assisted by other relatives and villagers, cleaned and washed their home, a Rela officer arrived and warned all villagers to immediately evacuate — again —  as the river is expected to overflow once more at 8pm.

Yesterday, about 1,900 flood victims all around Kuala Kangsar were evacuated  from their homes to 12 relief centres.

The worst-hit is the the low-lying Sayong area where a total 538 victims, from five villages in the district, have been evacuated to SK Sayong.

According to flood relief worker, Akmarudin Mohd Yusof, the number of evacuees is expected to rise to more than 2,000 after 8pm.

“They are releasing water into the Perak River from the Cenderoh Dam at 8pm so we are all on standby to get more villagers to safety,” he said.

Since Tuesday, all government agencies such as the Welfare Department, Health Department, Civil Defence Department, police and Public Works Department have been very systematic in assisting affected victims in this small town in Perak.

Up until yesterday, over 100,000 people across several states in the peninsula were displaced by the most severe floods in decades.