Kuala Lumpur, Mar. 7 (BNA): Malaysian police found the body of a young woman trapped in a car that was swept away by rushing waters, marking the fifth fatality from monsoon floods that forced more than 43,000 people to flee their homes. .
Police said in a statement on Monday that a 23-year-old woman who reported missing was believed to have been driving to work earlier in the day on a flooded road in the southern state of Johor when her car was swept away. Rescuers recovered the car hours later and found her body.
A man who was driving to work on a palm oil plantation in Johor was found dead recently after rescuers recovered his car from flood waters. Three elderly people also drowned.
Johor, the country’s second largest state that borders Singapore with a population of four million, is the hardest hit with more than 40,000 people evacuated to schools and community centres. The Associated Press (AP) reports that the number of evacuees is down from more than 50,000 a few days earlier.
Several other states, including remote areas on the island of Borneo, were also bombed.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim visited flood victims Sunday in Johor and pledged to speed up flood mitigation projects in the state. “This matter cannot be postponed and must be dealt with more seriously so that (the flood) does not happen again,” he wrote on Twitter.
The country is experiencing its sixth continuous bout of heavy rains since the annual monsoon season, which began in November, the Meteorological Department said. In December, tens of thousands of people were evacuated due to flooding.
Pictures released by the police in Johor showed the disappearance of roads and houses under the muddy water, with only rooftops visible.
More rains and storms are expected Tuesday in parts of Johor and the east Malaysian states of Borneo, which could cause more flash floods.
Authorities have also warned that waters in more than a dozen rivers nationwide have reached dangerous levels.
NAA