Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

Genting Highlands landslide: Firefighter moved by sight of family 'asleep in tent'

BATANG KALI —  Nothing could prepare anyone for the sight of corpses at disaster sites, not even for experienced responders.

Rescue workers work with sniffer dogs at the site of a deadly landslide as they search for survivors in Batang Kali, Selangor on Dec 17, 2022.

Rescue workers work with sniffer dogs at the site of a deadly landslide as they search for survivors in Batang Kali, Selangor on Dec 17, 2022.

Follow TODAY on WhatsApp

BATANG KALI —  Nothing could prepare anyone for the sight of corpses at disaster sites, not even for experienced responders.

Firefighter Abdul Rahman Lele, 31, said the sight of four members in a family found dead in a tent in the Batang Kali landslide left him speechless as he then thought of his daughter back home.

"My heart sank when we went to remove the canvas and noticed the two children 'sleeping' between the mother and father inside the camp.

"I immediately thought of my five-year-old daughter," said Mr Abdul Rahman who is attached to the Rawang fire and rescue station which is located at 24.8 km away from Batang Kali.

Sharing his first experience as a search-and-rescue (SAR) officer, Mr Abdul Rahman said the modus operandi for the mission at the site was for each team to move as a group with one excavator for each group.

He said they had to move in a group as the mud was too deep, and they had to hold on to each other to take each step.

"As the excavator dug into the soil, we would wait around the site to carry out a closer inspection at that particular spot. Then the team leader would assign one or two of us to have a closer look to make sure there aren't any bodies in the rubble.

"When I stepped inside the hole which had been dug out, I saw the camp's canvas and got a foul smell coming from beneath. Then, I removed the canvas and noticed the four prone bodies," he said during a breather from his work.

He said the rescuers subsequently documented their discovery which included the position the victims were found in, their condition and the depth they were found, before removal.

"We found the bodies at 10.40am and managed to successfully retrieve all four bodies within an hour.

"I felt very sad for the family, but also some relief that we managed to find four out of the seven victims still reported missing," said the father of three who had been attached to the special unit for the last three years.

Earlier on Thursday (Dec 22), Hulu Selangor Police chief Superintendent Suffian Abdullah said the victims' bodies were all found in the same place, under a camper at Sector C, at 11.04am.

He said SAR teams combing the ground noticed a buried camp underneath thick soil at 10.43am and called in the canine unit to confirm their findings.

"Once the canine unit signaled confirmation, the team began digging deeper into the soil and found the victims' bodies."

All four bodies were sent to Sungai Buloh Hospital for the identification process and post-mortem.

The landslide, which occurred on Dec 16 at around 2 am, saw at least 30 dead, with three more still missing. A total of 61 people have been reported to be safe. 

The search operation, now in its seventh day, had resumed at 8am on Thursday after being suspended at 10pm on Wednesday.

Thursday’s SAR operation was also forced to stop twice due to heavy rain. NEW STRAITS TIMES
 

Related topics

Genting Highlands firefighter

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.