PADANG TERAP, Jan 28 — The damage on school properties in the first wave of floods in Kelantan, Terengganu and Sabah last December is estimated at RM10 million.

Education Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid said, however, he had not received a full report on the damage caused by the second wave of floods affected the schools in Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Johor, Perak and Sabah earlier this month.

"For the second wave of floods we expect the total value of damages to be higher than the first wave and we will take immediate action to repair the affected schools.

"However, we still couldn’t repair the damages caused by the first wave of floods yet, even though we have already sent out allocation warrants to the respective states,” he told reporters after officiating the Felda Lubuk Merbau’s golden jubilee celebration here today.

The recent floods have resulted the closure of more than dozens of schools

with more than 15,000 students in Kelantan and Terengganu adversely affected.    In the meantime, Mahdzir, who is also Padang Terap member of Parliament

suggested that a piece of land allocated for teachers’ quarters for Sekolah Kebangsaan Lubuk Merbau to be handed over to the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) for the purpose of housing construction for the second generation of Felda Lubuk Merbau residents.

"The quarters were built for the placement of teachers in the 1970s, but with today’s increasingly modern infrastructure, many teachers opted to live outside and it is only occupied by one or two tenants,” he said. — Bernama