TEMERLOH, Jan 13 — The muddy waters that kept much of Temerloh’s center here submerged for over five days until early January was not the only tragedy that left this Pahang township devastated after the nation’s worst flood in decades.
As affected residents took cover from the raging waters that turned roads into rivers, looters, masked and even armed, hopped onto boats to scavenge.
With no police officers or enforcement officers in sight, the criminals reigned supreme in the state of lawlessness and made a killing, victims told Malay Mail Online.
Cries for help to stop the brazen daylight robberies went unattended, they claimed, as even the police couldn’t spare enough boats for crime work.
A worker from one Goodyear Tyre shop along Jalan Mentakab-Temerloh said that armed robbers broke open locked shutters and made off with 150 car tyres, 60 batteries and bottles of engine oil.
“Who would have thought that people would steal tyres of all things during the floods,” the 25-year-old who only wants to be known as Mr Khoo said. The estimated loss is at least RM100,000, he added.
He said the 7-Eleven store next door had been completely robbed. It was not opened for business yesterday during Malay Mail Online’s visit.
Continuous rains saw the waters in Temerloh rise very quickly from December 28, 2014, onwards, leaving the second-largest town in Pahang submerged for about five days.
It was only on January 2 that the waters finally began receding, traders said.
“In the short five days, armed looters who moved around in about six boats robbed us blind, not just us but so many others along this road,” a supervisor at the Super Cowboy Trading Sdn Bhd wholesale hypermarket told Malay Mail Online in Chinese.
He said people who had witnessed the looters carrying boat-full of brand new goods on the first day of the floods had informed him of the robberies. They even sent him pictures showing young men with their faces covered, he added.
Three workers who were staying at a hostel next to the hypermarket on the higher floor apparently witnessed the robberies but could not stop them.
“Where were the police? No where to be found,” he lamented.
In the five days, the supervisor said he placed more than 10 distress calls to the police but help did not arrive.
At the time, he claimed, the police said they had no boats to head out to the area to stop the looting.
Today, a police officer manning the Temerloh floods hotline told Malay Mail Online that of the 24 boats that were operating during the floods, eight were police boats.
Asked to estimate his losses, the supervisor shrugged helplessly and said that they were too large to estimate.
He said the hypermarket previously had more than 100 industrial-sized aluminium pots but only three were left by the looters.
Another staff at the hypermarket said 80 per cent of their stock was destroyed by the floods and the remaining 20 per cent was mostly stolen.
There is hardly anything left in the store to sell, she lamented.
As to how long it would take before the store could open for business again, the supervisor said it could take anywhere between three and six months to get things in order.
During Malay Mail Online’s visit, many people stopped by the hypermarket to purchase some daily essentials, with some even hoping for a large sale on some of the slightly damaged goods.
Down the road, a supermarket manager said looters visited his store too.
The manager who declined to be named said he was keeping watch along with about 20 other staff members from a higher building behind the mart.
Each time they saw the looters heading towards the store, the store’s employees would hop onto a non-motorised wooden boat using sticks as paddles to try and scare them off.
But many of the looters brandished knives or even machetes. For some of those who asked for rice, the workers would pass it to them, but at knifepoint.
“But those with the intention to rob, they would just steer their power boat into the building and had taken off with electronics, phones, and cigarettes,” he said.
On January 2, when the floodwaters receded, he said the police finally showed up at the store to ask if they needed assistance.
He told them, ‘No. It’s too late now. When we needed you the most, you weren’t there”.
“We are taxpayers too and we deserve your help. We can’t defend ourselves, we don’t have guns,” he said.
The man said he did not file a police report on the looting as he was disappointed with the lack of action despite his over 20 calls to the police.
When contacted, Temerloh district police told Malay Mail Online that between December 23 last year and January 4 this year, there were 27 reported break-ins; 19 were at shops and supermarkets while four were at petrol stations and four at houses.
A police spokesman said five men between the ages of 17 and 25 years have since been arrested to date and will be investigated under Section 457 of the Penal Code.
