Freak storm hits Seri Kembangan
The Star 19/4/2006

THE roofs of over 100 houses and low-cost flat homes on the upper floor were damaged when a freak storm hit Seri Kembangan Sunday afternoon. Electricity and telephone lines were also brought down in the bad weather.

Seri Kembangan assemblyman Datuk Liew Yuen Keong said the worst hit area was Jalan BS 5/20. There, the roofs of 31 double-storey houses were blown away, while that of 15 low-cost flat homes on the top floor, also in Bukit Serdang Section 5, were affected.

Liew said several houses in Kampung Seri Kembangan were also affected and floods in Jalan Putra Permai made the problem worse.

“Some of the residents who rushed home to look at the damage were stranded,'' he said.

Liew said there were also mud floods in areas such as Pusat Perdagangan Seri Kembangan.

“Although no trees were uprooted, branches snapped and fell on power and telephone cables so homes in several areas in Seri Kembangan have been without power and telephone services since Sunday,'' he said during a visit to the houses in Jalan BS 5/20 on Monday.

Accompanying him were MPSJ councillors Lee Tak San and Ungku Md Salleh Ungku Abdul Jamal and Seri Kembangan Village Security and Development Committee chairman Dr Yee Choy Leong and vice-chairman Chang Tai Peng.

Resident Razak Siron, 59, said most of the residents were caught off-guard during the storm and had to quickly remove their belongings from rooms that became exposed when the roof was blown away.

“The rain was so heavy that most of the items got soaked and the rain water flowed from the top floor and damaged furniture on the ground floor too,'' he said.

Razak said his family had to spend the night crammed in the rooms that were not affected, and where the mattresses were dry.

Together with help of the local Umno members, Liew supplied roof sheets for the houses in Jalan BS 5/20 as it involved mostly low income earners.

“We will put in a request to the Welfare Department to ask for funds for the roof sheets that we had to replace,'' he said, adding that he had also urged the department to provide monetary aid and necessary items for the affected residents.

Liew said he had asked Tenaga Nasional Bhd and Telekom Bhd to carry out the necessary repairs as soon as possible.

He said MPSJ and Alam Flora would also clean up the mud from Pusat Perdagangan Seri Kembangan as soon as possible as the thick layer at the entrance to shops was affecting business.

Serdang MP Datuk Yap Pian Hon, who also visited the area, said he was shocked at the amount of damage incurred by the two-hour rain.

“I have never seen this much damage caused by a storm in Seri Kembangan and the losses suffered by the residents at the Bukit Serdang Section 5 low-cost homes are huge,'' he said.

Yap said he would give RM20,000 out of the emergency allocations for MPs to help ease the residents' burdens.