KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 27 ― Dozens of patients warded at the Kuala Krai hospital have been airlifted to health facilities in the Klang Valley and the Universiti Sains Malaysia Hospital (HUSM) in Kota Baru amid a flood crisis that has affected more than 100,000 across eight states in peninsular Malaysia.
However, over a hundred more patients are still trapped and waiting to be evacuated from the Kelantan district hospital, one of the worst hit.
In a Facebook posting late last night, Health Ministry director-general Datuk Dr Mohd Noor Hisham Abdullah said that 1,000 litres of diesel had to be sent to the Kuala Krai hospital to be used for the generator as the place no longer had access to electricity.
“Today we have successfully transferred 38 sick patients and some of them were on respiratory support,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham however added that there are still 105 patients in the hospital currently being treated by 180 medical officers from the Health Ministry.
Meanwhile, a former director Drainage and Irrigation Department (river basin and coastal management division) Datuk Lim Chow Hock has warned that flash floods will likely hit areas in Selangor like Gombak and Klang the current weather persists.
He was quoted in a News Straits Times report as saying that this was because areas like Gombak sat in the upper-middle catchment areas of Gombak and Klang rivers.
“This is the spillover effect of the monsoon season to the west coast of the Peninsula.
“Therefore it is important that we deepen rivers, builds bunds and flood walls,” he was further quoted as saying.
As at 11am today, 106,340 people have been evacuated from their homes in Terengganu, Kelantan, Pahang, Perak, Johor, Perlis, Selangor, and Kedah.
Five deaths were recorded in Kelantan and two in Terengganu to date, according to data from the National Security Council published on its website.
The extent of the worst flooding in decades has been such that Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is overseeing the government’s flood relief efforts, has warned that floods are worse than anticipated, saying that assets currently deployed were inadequate to face the floods of such proportions.
