Nearly 90 incidents of landslides, flash flooding and road collapses have been reported over the past week, according to state authorities, as residents brace for worse to come after the Malaysian Meteorological Department issued a fresh storm warning on Tuesday.
The death toll is the highest from a single weather event in Sabah since the 1996 floods that killed over 200 people and swept away dozens of houses along the riverbanks in the state’s Keningau district, when tropical storm Greg struck.
The bodies of seven family members, including four children aged between two and nine, were recovered on Monday from the wreckage of their home in Kampung Cenderakasih on the outskirts of the state capital Kota Kinabalu.
Further south in Papar, some 40km (25 miles) from the capital, a 34-year-old woman and her two children, aged six and 10, were killed when their wooden house in Kampung Maragan Tuntul was destroyed by a landslide.
In nearby Kampung Mook, also in Papar, a 38-year-old woman and her 11-year-old son died when a landslide destroyed their house and two others built on the slopes of a hill.
“This is just so worrying. Flooding happens at least once a year, so we are used to that, but we have not had so many landslides before,” said Jeanne Chong, 38, whose house in Penampang district bears water marks from regular flooding.
