The Star, Saturday December 1, 2012
Family and two others plunge down collapsed road
Reports by P. ARUNA, AUSTIN CAMOENS, LOSHANA K SHAGAR, YVONNE LIM, THAM WEE NIE, CHIANG PANG FEI and FELIX CULAS
KAJANG: Five people narrowly escaped death while travelling on a road which collapsed near the Semenyih dam after several days of rain.
A car driven by a couple and their daughter and a van driven by a man plunged 30m into a river bank.
A security guard who went to investigate on his motorcycle hit into the rubble of the collapsed road and also slid down the river bank.
The Fire and Rescue Department was notified at around 7.43pm on Wednesday, minutes after it occurred, said operations officer Seman Awang.
Fifteen men in two engines were dispatched to the scene from Kajang and Bangi, he said at the scene.
“By the time we arrived at 8.24pm, the five had got to safety,” he added.
Seman said the road would be closed until its “structural integrity” had been thoroughly examined.
The guard, Mohd Khair Abdullah Zabar, was working at the Semenyih dam here on Wednesday night when he noticed two sets of headlights shining down towards the river at about 8pm.
“I also heard a loud noise that sounded like a tree falling.
“That's when I got on my motorcycle to investigate,” said the 20-year-old.
“There were no street lights as the electricity had been cut. In my hurry to find out what had happened, I did not realise that a part of the road had collapsed.”
Mohd Khair said his motorcycle hit into some rubble and slid down the bank, where the overturned car was. Further away was the van.
He helped Sukri Serajudin, 32, and his wife Noor Shazwani Mohd Adnan, 24, pull their two-year-old child Noraina Qaisara from the backseat.
Together with the man in the van, they climbed up to the road, where Mohd Khair stopped a passing car and asked the driver to inform the police.
”The others were taken in an ambulance to the Kajang Hospital. My sister took me to the nearest clinic. I was only slightly injured,” Mohd Khairi said.
Kajang police station's Insp Zamri Musa, who was at the scene, said that about 500m of the road had been cordoned off within two hours of the landslide.
He expects the road to remain closed for at least six months for repairs.
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