DENGKIL, Dec 28 — The Dengkil Bridge over Sungai Langat which collapsed on December 17 is expected to be fully repaired and opened to vehicles by the end of next January.
Selangor Mentri Besar, Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari said currently, the repair works to the bridge which connected Dengkil to Banting had reached 30 per cent.
“The District Engineer is expecting its reopening to be by next January 20, the earliest, that is, two or three days after completion and certified to be safe,” he told the media when visiting the location of the collapsed bridge, here, today .
The Dengkil Bridge was closed to traffic on December 17 as the flood on December 18 had made the hole at the bridge bigger.
Amirudin also said that the state government would be expanding its flood aid to include those in the agriculture, business and school sectors.
“This (aid) will be announced from time to time as currently we want to first settle the matter involving the flood victims at their homes and those who died in the floods.
“Then we look at the affected agricultural land, schools and businesses. I know that many of the farmers are also affected, as well as the shops and factories.
“We definitely wish to help all but we (state government) are also looking at our own ability as now we are focusing on the cleansing operations and distribution of basic essentials to the flood victims,” he said.
On the bantuan wang ihsan bencana (disaster compassionate cash aid), he said the state government estimated that over 30,000 flood-affected families would be receiving it.
The distribution will start tomorrow for 9,000 families at the flood relief centres (PPS).
“We will also try to contact those flood victims who have returned to their homes, besides identifying the others who did not evacuate to the PPS.
“In Sepang alone, we have 9,000 families who did not move to the PPS, hence so far, we have 18,000 of such families but I think the figure has reached over 30,000 as in the other districts we did not get a chance to identify them,” said Amirudin.
On December 21, Amirudin announced the disaster aid for all the flood-affected residents in the state involving RM10,000 for each family of the victims who perished in the floods and RM1,000 for each flood-affected family.
Other forms of assistance were also announced involving health, exemption of one month’s water bill payment and deferment on loan repayment for entrepreneurs under the Hijrah Selangor initiative. — Bernama
