The Star, Monday December 5, 2011

Kajang still recovering after flood damage

KUALA LUMPUR: Traders in Kajang are trying to recoup losses worth hundreds of thousands of ringgit after a six-hour clean-up of “the worst flood damage”.

Over the weekend, customers were seen carrying out their usual shopping with some buying flood-damaged goods at slashed prices.

Shoe businessman Lee Tee Khoon, 58, said his losses amounted to at least RM20,000 as the floodwaters soaked hundreds of pairs of school shoes he had ordered for the back-to-school season.

“Fortunately, it's the beginning of the month and the customers have enough to spend,” he said, adding that he had carted the remaining 4,000 pairs to a storeroom upstairs.

Sole searching: Lee checking damaged goods in the storeroom of his shop.
 

“Just in case there's another flood.”

Lee said he planned to sell the damaged shoes for between RM1 and RM5 after washing and drying them.

The municipal council has cleaned up the worst-hit streets of mud and sludge.

“Now, they must quickly clean up the drains or flooding will occur again,” Tee Khoon said.

Grocery store sales staff Azuawati Abdul Manan, who was washing some of the goods, said business was “slowly returning to normal” as customers started trickling in over the weekend.

“Our losses were around RM10,000,” she said.

“All the slippers, toys and shoes were washed away. We can't find them,” she added.

Deemed the worst floods since 1971, a three-hour downpour on Friday afternoon caused 1.5m high floodwaters to inundate the town.

Kajang assemblyman Lee Kim Sin said about 200 people had worked to clean up the streets from 11pm Saturday night to 5am the next morning.

“We cleared the streets of debris and I would say around 90% of the streets are back to normal. Clean-up efforts are still ongoing,” he added.

“We will begin resurfacing the damaged roads in the coming months,” Lee said, adding that the flood was due to an excessive amount of rainfall between 80mm and 100mm.

“Further widening of Sungai Jelok will be carried out next year.”