BALING: Kedah menteri besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor wants the villages affected by floods in Baling to be declared as Level I or II emergency response areas to speed up aid by state and federal agencies.
He said that according to the government directive, the power to declare Level III emergency response lies with the prime minister on the advice of the central disaster management committee.
Level I emergency response may be declared by the district officer as the director of the district disaster management committee, he said in a Facebook post.
This will make it easier for the agencies concerned to speed up aid to repair damaged infrastructure and help the victims.
He said the matter would be decided at the state disaster management committee meeting to be chaired by state secretary Ammar Shaikh Mahmood Naim today.
Earlier, three members of a family, including a four-month pregnant woman, were reported missing after their house was swept away by floods in Kampung Iboi, Kupang here yesterday.
They are housewife Salmah Mat Akib, 53, her pregnant daughter-in-law Nurul Hanis Abu Hassan, 23, and a third individual, aged 14.
Salmah’s husband, Abd Rahman Said, 71, said he received a call from Nurul Hanis to inform him about the rising flood waters.
“It was about 4pm and I was not at home, but when I returned, the house was no longer there and a bridge nearby had also been swept away,” he said at the flood relief centre at SMK Jerai here.
Nurul Hanis’ husband, Khairul Ashraf Nor Azman, 24, said she was pregnant with their first child. The couple were married last February.
Baling district police chief Shamsudin Mamat said police launched a search and rescue operation, but as of early this morning, they had not been found.
As of 2am today, 334 flood victims from nine villages had been evacuated to several relief centres.
