Miri Resort City.com - Disasters

30th October 2008 - Flooding in rural of Sarawak affects fuel prices

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:27:06 +0800

MIRI: The price of fuel has shot up to between RM7 and RM8 per litre in flood-hit Baram district.

Jok Jau Evong, Sahabat Alam Malaysia field officer for Sarawak, conducted a survey yesterday and found prices had rocketed.

“In Marudi town, it is RM7 but in some deeper villages, it is RM8,” he said.

Emergency supplies of some 26,000 litres of petrol and diesel that were supposed to arrive from Bintulu town and Miri City yesterday could not be sent to Marudi – the transit town into Baram district – because of logistical and flood woes.
High demand: Interior folks in flood-hit Baram district desperately buying petrol and diesel even though they cost RM7 to RM8 per litre from a vendor yesterday.

The consignments are made up of 22,000 litres of petrol and diesel from the Shell depot in Bintulu, and 4,000 litres of petrol and diesel from the Miri Resident’s Office.

{...}

Non-governmental bodies like the Red Cresent, Mercy Malaysia and others have also started arranging for food aid to be sent to the 15,000 stranded villagers in Baram.

[ Source ]

22nd September 2008 - Sexual abuse of Penan girls

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:54:03 +0800

MIRI: Sarawak police have called on non-governmental organisations or human rights groups that have information about sexual abuse by timber workers against interior Penan and native girls to lodge official police reports immediately.

State Police Commissioner Datuk Mohmad Salleh said Sarawak police are prepared to launch an immediate investigation into these serious allegations.

“We need official police reports to facilitate an immediate probe. Any NGOs or natives who know of such cases should lodge a report at the nearest police station.

“If there is an official report, we can commence investigations immediately,” he said.

Mohamad said Miri police have told him they had not received any official report on the allegations, adding that he would also check with the police chief in the interior division of Baram.

Mohmad, here on a working visit, was presenting donations to widows and orphans at the Miri police headquarters when asked about allegations circulating in cyberspace concerning the sexual abuse of Penan women by timber workers in interior Baram.

The allegations were highlighted by the Bruno Manser Foundation on its website.

“Sometimes, the problem with NGOs is that they highlight complaints through their websites and the media. They don’t come to us (the police). They should come to us first,” he told a press conference here on Tuesday.

The website claimed that young Penan women in Baram had been sexually abused by timber workers in logging camps and in their settlements.

The foundation, based in Switzerland, is an environmental and human rights grouping set up by environmental activist Bruno Manser, the Swiss who made a name for himself in the 1980s when he organised huge anti-logging protests among the nomadic and semi-nomadic Penans of interior Sarawak.

He went missing in the interior of Sarawak in 2001.

A large part of Baram district, and other parts of interior Sarawak, have been alloted to private consortiums for logging and plantation development. Many of these areas are still populated by indigenous and minority groups, including the Penans.

21st September 2008 - Welding possible cause of Miri blast

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:11:39 +0800

MIRI: The explosion that ripped apart a fuel-laden vessel in the Miri River and killed two crew members last week was possibly sparked off by human carelessness, initial investigations revealed.

A spark from welding work being done on the ship could have triggered the fire which resulted in a huge explosion at about 9am on Sept 13.

The ship, Ark 2, was berthed along the bank of the river, adjacent to a petrol-station, for servicing.

It was supposed to ferry hundreds of drums of fuel for people in the deep interior settlements.

State fire chief Mohd Shoki Hamzah said yesterday investigations and testing was still being carried out on board the wreckage to pinpoint the cause.

Miri police chief Asst Comm Jamaluddin Ibrahim said the initial probe showed that the fire and subsequent explosion happened when maintenance workers were carrying out servicing on board the ship.

“There must be strict compliance with safety measures on board such high-risk vessels,” he said.

Experts from the Sarawak and Brunei forensic departments were trying to identify a corpse found in Brunei’s Seria district, 50km from here, to determine if it was the vessel’s missing crew member Ting Huang Ung.

Ting went missing after the explosion and was believed to have been thrown into the river from the impact of the blast.

Brunei police found the body near Kuala Belait.

The other crew killed in the blast, Richard Emang, was found floating near Bintulu, 250km south of Miri two days ago.

Source

Original news of the explosion here.

13th September 2008 - Explosion!

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:32:39 +0800

Video captured by "SagaRaptor" and put on youtube.

Explosion on river-barge kills one
By STEPHEN THEN

MIRI: An explosion ripped apart a fuel-laden river-barge in the heart of the city here, killing a crew member of the barge and injuring several others.

The barge, similar in size to a 60-tonne fishing vessel, was torn apart by the blast which occurred at about 9am Saturday.

The barge was docked along the banks of the Miri river adjacent to a petrol-station near the Krokop Industrial Estate.

It was loading several hundred drums of fuel for transportation into the interior when an explosion occurred.

Luckily, the vessel was docked inside the river and was more than 20 metres away from the petrol station.

The explosion caused a massive fire on board the vessel. The impact of the blast rocked nearby buildings, but did not cause any other serious injuries.

Workers on board the barge jumped into the river, but one of them, a youth, was found drowned at about 1pm. Another suffered burns while the rest were slightly injured.

Miri Police chief Asst Comm Jamaluddin Ibrahim said the cause of the blast was still being investigated.

In Sarawak, river-barges are used to transport fuel to interior outposts for sale to longhouse, sawmills and riverine towns and villages.

[ Source ]

About 20+- years ago, Miri town was rocked by another early morning explosion - the infamous Public Bank Gas Leak Explosion in town center. There were many similarities to today's incident - the explosion occurred during morning, near the busy town, and some casualties.

This morning I was driving and saw an odd column of smoke rising from town and thought nothing of it - until a friend from near the explosion called me up and informed me about it.

Today is Unlucky September 13th. Condolences to the families of the victim and injured.

10th August 2008 - Blackout in Sarawak

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:52:06 +0800

By STEPHEN THEN

MIRI: A state-wide power cut in Sarawak on Saturday evening (9th August, 2008) saw the blackout affect more than two million people over a distance of 1,000km from Kuching to Miri.

Cities and towns in the state were plunged into total darkness causing massive chaos as everybody was caught by surprise.

The power failure started in Kuching at about 6.30pm Saturday and rapidly spread northward to Sibu then to Miri by 7.30pm.

{...}

Meanwhile, thousands of people who were caught up in the massive traffic jam and in commercial complexes were reportedly evacuated without any incidents so far.

Source

It's got a much more serious effect on many things than they think.

What are the chances we get a public apology explanation from SESCO? Very slim - because usually, they don't.

7th August 2008 - Leak along pipeline causes oil spill off Miri

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 17:15:03 +0800

MIRI: Petronas Carigali has suspended decommissioning works on a network of disused pipelines offshore Miri in northern Sarawak after detecting leakage along a 13km pipeline that lays between an oil platform in the South China Sea and the inshore Miri Crude Oil Terminal.

The company's contractor and staff from the Department of Environment are now in the midst of an operation to contain the spill and to clean up the oil sleeks that had washed ashore, causing pollution to a stretch of beach along an exclusive housing estate occupied by oil and gas industry expatriates in Lutong town, some 20km north of the city here.

DOE Miri chief Dayang Norbani on Thursday confirmed that the leakage has been contained and that 90% of the spill had been recovered.

"We are now in the midst of trying to recover the other 10%. Petronas' contractors are also cleaning up the beaches to ensure that the pollutants are removed.

"We are still trying to determine how the leak occurred and how much of the shoreline has been affected," she said when contacted.

To a question, she said the DOE is still trying to find out if any populated riverine villages were affected by the oil pollutants.

Dozens of workers from the oil company had been deployed at various points along the affected zones to ensure that the oil sleeks do not get washed back to the sea.

Petronas on Thursday issued a statement saying that "about 15 barrels of oil" trapped in the pipeline had leaked into the South China Sea, and the leakage was spotted at 7.40pm on Tuesday.

The company said that air surveillance had been carried out and it was found that there were no additional signs of leakage.

"The company had deployed divers to detect the exact location of the leakage on the pipeline for repair works to be done," said the statement.

The pipeline was installed in 1984. A new pipeline was installed last year.

The decommissioning works on the old pipeline started on Monday and was supposed to go on for three weeks.

Source

16 July 2008 - HFMD fears in Sarawak (Again)

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:20:55 +0800

MIRI: Hospitals and clinics in Sarawak have been told to watch out for a possible outbreak of the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) in the coming months.

There was a minor scare last week in Miri City when a kindergarten shut down for a few days after several children showed HFMD symptoms.

The state Disaster Relief Committee and the health and medical authorities are not taking things for granted.

.......

HFMD outbreaks usually follow a three-year cycle but the effect can be mitigated through cleanliness, proper hygiene and early detection.

Source

Seems like HFMD is recurring again! You can read previous HFMD news here.

18th June 2008 - Malaysian Indigenous People Face Arrest at Logging Blockade

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:17:45 +0800

MIRI, Sarawak, Malaysia, June 17, 2008 (ENS) - A month-long blockade of logging roads by indigenous people in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia set to protest illegal logging on their communal lands is about to be broken up by police.

More than 100 indigenous Kenyah people gathered at the blockade site on the upper Moh River on the island of Borneo claim that the blockade is their only way of calling on representatives of a certain Company and government authorities to have a consultation and meet with them to listen to their problems and demands.

Otherwise, they say, the timber Company will continue to ignore their demands and plights.

Kenyahs blockade a logging road on the Upper Moh River. The banner says, "Do not rob the wealth from the poor people's land and give it to the rich in the city."

According to the Borneo Resources Institute in Miri, which issued a statement today on behalf of the Kenyah peoples, ever since the logging company started its logging operations in the upper Baram area, the indigenous communities have suffered the environmental impacts of logging.

They say the company simply encroached into their communal land and forest areas to carry out logging activities, without any consultation and consideration for their source of livelihood.

The Kenyahs have forwarded some "reasonable demands for social benefits and development of the community as they are the rights stakeholders that should be fairly benefit from forest resources in their area," the Borneo Resources Institute says.

The Kenyah say they resorted to the blockade action after the company and the state forest agency ignored their demands and their rights of access and claims to the benefits of their natural forest resources.

Since the blockade was erected, the company's logging activities have ceased. Hundreds of timber logs that had been felled are stacked up along the sides of the logging road because the Kenyahs have stopped all the logging trucks and other logging machines from entering the area and transporting timber from the area.

The Kenyahs have written a letter to the Sarawak Forestry Corporation, a state government agency, requesting that the agency carry out an urgent physical inspection of all logs that have been illegally felled by the company in the area.

They also called upon the Sarawak Forestry Corporation to stop them from carrying out its operation until all inspection of timber logs has been completed.

Their request has been ignored.

Believing that they have no other alternative and being compelled to bring attention to their plight, the indigenous Kenyahs of Kedaya Telang Usan area in Baram Region have resorted to staging this protest, which is still continuing.

On May 29, upon receiving complaints from the timber company, a group of personnel from the Sarawak Forestry Corporation, went to the blockade site to remove the wooden barricades, but they were restrained from dismantling the blockade.

As a result, the Sarawak Forestry Corporation filed a court action requesting a Warrant of Arrest, which has been granted by the Magistrate Court in Miri.

Police personnel from the Marudi Police Station were ordered to the blockade site to enforce the Warrant of Arrest on June 14. So far, no arrests have taken place.

[ Source ]

Rural Sarawakians "Forgotten"

Sat, 7 Jun 2008 15:24:50 +0800

A post by Uchu Keling on how our Prime Minster totally 'forgotten' about rural Sarawakians - most highly affected by the increases in diesel for transport.

You see, diesel is not only vital for river and land transportation for goods in the rural areas (where off-road vehicles are needed sometimes), they are absolutely essential for generators for electrical power. The sudden jump in diesel practically put a halt to everything.

We're all really angry about it - but us here in the city are still lucky enough to have the basic needs covered (at higher costs) but it is the rural areas that have become extremely critical.

See what Uchu Keling has to say.

27th May 2008 -700 made homeless in fire at longhouse

Tue, 27 May 2008 10:13:24 +0800

MIRI: A fire gutted a longhouse making some 700 dwellers homeless in northern Sarawak yesterday.

The fire occurred at about midnight at Rumah Banyang occupied by 41 Iban families.

Last month, three longhouse blocks were destroyed in the Punan Bah village in Kapit Division in central Sarawak, leaving 1,000 Punan villagers homeless.

Rumah Banyang, which was built during the colonial era, is located about 90km south of here in the Sibuti parliamentary constituency, sandwiched between Miri and the Bintulu parliamentary seats.

Miri Division Fire chief Serumi Ali said that the fire spread very fast and by the time they reached the scene, the longhouse was already gutted.

Several non-governmental bodies like the Red Crescent and the Tzu Chi Buddhist Society were providing aid to the victims.

[ Source ]

Please help provide aid to the longhouse victims by contacting by contacting these non-governmental bodies and ask how you can help. Fire safety equipment & training should be provided to the longhouse settlers to prevent such disasters occurring.

Contact Info:

美里紅心月會
Miri Red Crescent Society

Lot 312, Lorong 1
J. Bulan Sabit
PO Box 370
98007 Miri
Telephone : 6 085 411121
Fax : 085 420479

Tzu Chi Buddhist Society

Lot 1276-1279, 2nd Floor,
Centre Point Commercial Centre,
Jalan Melayu, 98000 Miri,
Sarawak.
Tel : 085-419753

Orang Utans are in Peril!

Sun, 11 May 2008 14:35:28 +0800

First off, what are Orang Utans? Let's get to know the animal we're talking about here before we go any further about them being in peril. The orangutans are two species of great apes known for their intelligence, long arms and reddish-brown hair. Pretty ugly by ape standards, but nevertheless we should not be bias about saving cute animals only.

They are currently found only in rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. These are the last places on Earth they are known to exist - these are cause for concern. Interestingly however, their fossils have been known found in Java, Vietnam and China.

Their name derives from the Malay and Indonesian phrase "orang hutan", meaning "Jungle Man". The orangutan is an official state animal of Sabah in Malaysia.

As far as I know, none exist in Sarawak. Right now you're probably thinking, "This Ian is a weirdo, why it be any of our concern if there are (apparently) none in Sarawak?"

Well, simply because - Sarawak is part of that Borneo, and as a whole, we needed to be aware of these things and help the effort in getting spreading awareness. The Bornean species of orangutans is endangered, and the Sumatran species is listed critically endangered.

It is this news article that got me thinking about the severity of situation.

Very shocking quotes from the article:

"For Central Kalimantan, the species will be gone as soon as three years from now"

"Experts believe the overall extinction rate of Borneo orangutans is nine per cent per year, but in Central Kalimantan they are disappearing even faster due to unchecked expansion of palm oil plantations."

So this is what got the conservationists jumping up and down three years ago when they accused Sarawak's oil palm plantation of destroying the orang utan's habitat (as mentioned before, none exist in Sarawak). They simply got bad geography and actually meant Central Kalimantan, where they are hunted as pests to prevent them eating palm seedlings!

Even though Sarawak does not have Orang Utan, we're still part of that Borneo, the island we share with the Orang Utans. It is this island that not only are they killing Orang Utans mercilessly, but deforestation and irresponsible field burning adds to not only the Orang Utan's demise, but probably ours very soon as well. Suddenly the border dividing Sarawak and Kalimantan becomes meaningless.

Please help spread the awareness, especially to our young children, so they'll grow up with this in mind, possibly even changing our world and treatment towards animals for the better in the future. The future lies in their hands, because the current generation of humans are such screw-ups when it comes to awareness of endangered animals.

To learn more about Orang Utans, please see the reference links

The News Article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan

http://www.orangutanprotection.com/

http://www.savetheorangutan.org/

Line goes dead, idiocy ensues.

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:07:15 +0800

Around midnight last night, the connection to our server dropped dead for no reason. No amount of effort will resurrect it - the line went dead out of our control.

What's left to rant about? Having a bad connection and having a downtime of half a day is bad enough, but having the ISP not having a clue as to what is happening and still insisting the blame is on our side?

What ticks me off is that the tech support we called never bothers to record what we've mentioned. We've already stated from the very beginning over the phone that we used multiple hardware to try to resurrect the line - which by then was very obvious that the problem did not stem from our hardware at all, as our neighbors were also experiencing the same thing happening as well (as if this isn't enough of a clue that it is not isolated to our hardware?)

What happened next was they sent a techie to call me up and ask me all the repeated questions - turn modem on/off, change to direct connection, get rid of splitters, check your pulse, take a urine sample, etc. Why wasn't what we said earlier recorded so they don't start wasting both our time? They can't even deduce that the connection problem is AREA-wide, seeing that our neighbors also complained. That's just really, really, unsystematic of them.

And to think that business users actually pay more than double for the same package for home users.

13th April, 2008: Tycoons buying endangered animals as 'status symbols'

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:15:49 +0800

Tycoons buying endangered animals as 'status symbols'
MIRI: Powerful towkays in Sarawak cities are paying good money to native trappers to capture endangered animals to put on display in their homes as “status symbols.”

Their demand has resulted in an increasingly active black market in exotic wildlife in certain parts of Sarawak, according to information received by environmental-conservation and native rights group Borneo Resources Institute.
Source

Laws are okay, but enforcement is poor, says UNDP
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has found Sarawak to be “extremely weak” in enforcing laws against cruelty to animals and endangered wildlife.

The laws drawn up by the state government were good but there was something very wrong with the enforcement, said UNDP’s expert in environmental conservation in Sarawak, Dr Alexander Sayok.
Source

The above news is the result of these ones:

Caged sunbear dies

Officers raid sunbear farm, come up empty.

Yes, you incompetent enforcement. You just have to wait 6 months and for the bear to die before taking action, don't you? And conveniently say that the bears mysteriously disappear.

Miri might be a 'rich' place currently, but probably a more suitable phrase would be 'the city of the rich & the eccentric'.

Forum discussion on the matter.

13th February 2008 - "Sorry, can’t do anything", flood victims told.

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:33:22 +0800

Sorry, can’t do anything, flood victims told
By Wellesly B Ongie

MARUDI: The folk of Rumah Nanga Lait and other Iban and Berawan longhouses along Sungai Tinjar hit by flood since Wednesday morning were allegedly told that nothing could be done to help them.

A Baram disaster relief committee member, SAO Ladin Atok, at Baram District Office told the headman of Rumah Nanga Lait, Ricky Melai, that one of the reasons was the district welfare officer was recently transferred to Lubok Antu.

To make matters worse, the Baram disaster relief chairman is on holiday, he said.

Ricky, who reported the flood to the relief committee on Wednesday evening, said most of the longhouses along Sungai Tinjar were badly hit by the flood with the water just about reaching the floors.

The floor of his own longhouse is six feet above the ground and when he left for this town the water was five feet high and rising.

Also hit were Long Teru Health Clinic, Rumah Long Teru, Nanga Ajoi, Nanga Majang, and Lubok Mulong.

[ Source ]

Power Failure yet Again.

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:12:46 +0800

We had another power failure yet again for almost a full hour, merely a month after the last one and a a few more before it.

So on goes the usual routine when this happens:

- People can't do work, or lost work or data they are working on and have to do it again

- People flock to coffeeshops near office to seek refuge

- Coffeeshop owners happy

- MiriResortCity.com goes offline

- Traffic lights gone offline

- Traffic accidents mount as drivers no longer know how to drive as lights went out

- Business owners who spent a bundle of money on generators are laughing hysterically at business owners who did not.

- Petty crime or two probably occured, taking advantage of empty offices or non-workable alarm systems.

Bottom line: NO ONE is happy when power failures occur. A possible exception is the coffeeshop owners but besides that, no one is happy. No excuses.