A landslide in Batang Kali, Selangor province, Malaysia, has killed a total of 24 people, according to the latest official toll released Saturday afternoon. Nine other people are missing.
Rescuers will continue search efforts until 4 a.m. Sunday and will continue at 9 a.m. Monday, police spokesman Suffian Abdullah was quoted as saying by Malaysian daily ‘The Star’.
«We will continue to focus on sectors A, B and C during the operation,» he told reporters. However, he added that the work is conditioned by the weather and indicated that it will be halted if there are heavy rains. A total of 135 professionals are working on the search.
The rescuers have managed to find the last bodies at 05.00 (local time) after the accident caused by a landslide in a camp in Malaysia, according to the newspaper ‘The Sun Daily’.
At around 3.00 a.m. (local time), the Malaysian emergency services received an alert about a landslide, after which several teams of the Selangor Fire and Rescue Corps arrived and found the first 16 victims.
The accident occurred at a camping site which, according to the authorities, was operating illegally. Local Government Development Minister Nga Kor Ming visited the area and confirmed that the camp was operating without an operating license from the Hulu Selangor District Council and that the culprit could be sentenced to «three years imprisonment».
The minister has reported the closure of all «high risk» settlements across the country for the next seven days to avoid similar accidents, especially now when the country is facing heavy rainy seasons due to the northeast monsoon.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
