10 MINS WATER REACHES CAR WINDSCREEN 15 HOURS THEN THEY ARE FINALLY SAVED - Singapore's Online Community

**Ba0bEi** · 22-01-2007, 09:19 AM

HE clung on for dear life to an oil palm tree. It was pitch dark and around him, flood waters raged.

Mr Syed Khalil Syed Hashim, 48, had to endure rats running over him, a centipede bite on his left palm, and even a brush with what he believed was a snake.

'It was pitch dark, so I couldn't see anything. But I felt it slithering by me, so I just grabbed it by instinct and flung it away,' recalled Mr Syed Khalil, an assistant manager at an oil palm processing mill in Kluang.

He wasn't alone.

Several metres away, his two Myanmar workers were also hanging on to trees.

One was balancing a plastic-wrapped bundle of important immigration papers on his head and holding an umbrella over him.

'We remained like that all through the night,' said Mr Syed Khalil.

It was the longest night of his life, he added.

The assistant manager was heading home at around 6pm on 12 Jan. It had been raining all day, but he was sure that his Pajero SUV could handle the wet roads.

ALMOST HOME

He told The New Paper on Sunday over the phone in Malay: 'There was only a few inches of water when I turned into the road going past Ladang Selai. I was less than an hour from home.

ELECTRIC NEWS

They thought they could drive through few inches of water, then comes horror
10 MINS WATER REACHES CAR WINDSCREEN 15 HOURS THEN THEY ARE FINALLY SAVED
By Teh Jen Lee, Zaihan Mohd Yusof and Mohd Ishak

January 22, 2007

HE clung on for dear life to an oil palm tree. It was pitch dark and around him, flood waters raged.

Mr Syed Khalil Syed Hashim, 48, had to endure rats running over him, a centipede bite on his left palm, and even a brush with what he believed was a snake.

'It was pitch dark, so I couldn't see anything. But I felt it slithering by me, so I just grabbed it by instinct and flung it away,' recalled Mr Syed Khalil, an assistant manager at an oil palm processing mill in Kluang.

He wasn't alone.

Site of terror: The place where the three men spent the night hanging onto trees. The SUV was swept about 30m by the currents.
Several metres away, his two Myanmar workers were also hanging on to trees.

One was balancing a plastic-wrapped bundle of important immigration papers on his head and holding an umbrella over him.

'We remained like that all through the night,' said Mr Syed Khalil.

It was the longest night of his life, he added.

The assistant manager was heading home at around 6pm on 12 Jan. It had been raining all day, but he was sure that his Pajero SUV could handle the wet roads.
ALMOST HOME

He told The New Paper on Sunday over the phone in Malay: 'There was only a few inches of water when I turned into the road going past Ladang Selai. I was less than an hour from home.

'Suddenly, I felt the Pajero shaking. When I tried to reverse, I couldn't because the ground was unstable. I tried to go on, but after 10 minutes the car stalled in 60cm of water.'

In another 10 minutes, the water reached the car windscreen.

He quickly told his two employees, Mr Thiat To Naing and Mr Nay Min Ton, both in their early 20s, to climb to the top of the car.

He tried to swim to a bungalow that he had driven by earlier, but the current was too strong.

'I had to cling on to an oil palm tree so that I would not be swept away. About 6m from me, my workers did the same thing because the Pajero was already drifting in the water.'

Throughout his ordeal, Mr Syed Khalil said he kept checking his watch, which had a built-in light. Each minute seemed like an eternity.

He said he cried when he thought about his wife, three children and two grandchildren.

But he continued to assure his workers by calling out to them every five minutes.

'I told them not to try and swim anywhere. I was sure we would be saved if we could stay put until dawn.'

He spoke to them in Malay as they had picked up basic command of the language after working at the mill for three years.

To quench his thirst, Mr Syed Khalil took his shirt off and wrung it.

About 7am the next day, almost 15 hours later, they started shouting for help.

Mr Syed Khalil said he saw a man near the bungalow he had tried to swim to.

'The man seemed to hear me because I was sure he shouted back. But later, I was told that the rescuers were sent out after their employer's wife heard my shouts,' he said.

Madam Noraini Haji Anwar, 42, who lives in the bungalow, said that she first heard some noise from the oil palm plantation at 7.15am.

She said: 'It sounded like birds and it was almost drowned by the sound of the flowing water. I asked my husband and son to listen but they couldn't hear anything.

'Finally my husband's foreman, Jamil, heard a distinct 'tolong' (Malay for help). By then two hours had passed,' said the housewife.

Her husband, plantation manager Mohd Ali Abdul Rahman, 44, got his 3m boat out and equipped it with rubber tyres, life jackets, rope and life-saver floats.

'I had to find suitable candidates for the rescue mission because I knew it would be very difficult and risky, given how strong the current was,' he said.

It took foreman Jamil Jaafar and two other workers, Mr Ahmad Bahari Ramani and Mr Latip Ismail, about 30 minutes to reach Mr Syed Khalil.

Mr Ahmad, 47, said: 'The water came up to their necks. Also, their hands and feet were cramped after being in the water for so long.

'They had dirt in their hair, their limbs had turned blue from the cold. It felt good to be able to save them.'

The first thing Mr Syed Khalil did was to call his wife, Madam Norasiken Yaumil, 47, who works at the same mill company as him.

He said: 'She just cried with thankfulness when she heard my voice.'

She said she could not sleep the whole night.

'He had called me on that day at about 4pm, saying he was on his way back. He should have reached by 7pm. I called his family and employer but no one knew where he was.

'I was so worried. I kept crying and praying for his safe return,' she said.

Her husband and the workers waited for three days for the water to recede before heading home. They stayed in a worker's home.

Mr Syed Khalil said: 'Mr Mohd Ali told me to keep the clothes that he lent me after my rescue. It's like a souvenir.

'I will bring my entire family back here. We are all indebted to their kindness.'

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SPIRITS STAY HIGH IN 'HIGH CITY'

AS our motorboat moved through the water-logged town of Kota Tinggi this week, we could not help but notice the irony.

'Kota Tinggi' means high city in Malay, but it was submerged in two to three metres of water.

Thousands were evacuated when the Johor River burst its banks 10 days ago and flooded the city.

When The New Paper on Sunday team made a pre-dawn visit on Wednesday, the town centre was dimly lit by a few street lamps.

The only sound was of the rippling water along Jalan Tun Seri Lanang, the main road which runs through the heart of town.

Yet, when dawn broke at about 7am, people were seen wading fearlessly through the water. Most were workers on their way to the shops - to clean and salvage whatever they could.

Although it would take a few more days for the water to completely recede, the level had dropped enough for some shop owners and staff to start cleaning up.

Several children, too young to realise the gravity of the situation, happily played in the water as some schools were closed.

Iqmal Hakim, 9, who was at his mother's bone-soup restaurant, said: 'I'm happy to help. At the same time I can play with water.'

Not for Adira Zamri, 4, who had to stay in a Batu Pahat relief centre while her mother went out to work.

The adults also surprised us with their 'let's make the best of this, life goes on' attitude.

Many of them, like Mr Zamani Razali, 20, greeted us with bright smiles even though their homes were submerged.

When he saw our yellow boots, he said: 'I thought Phua Chu Kang had come to visit us.'

**Ba0bEi** · 22-01-2007, 09:19 AM

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I'M STAYING PUT

Crop ruined, S'pore woman pawns juwellery to survive
Kids here worried, but she says...

HER farm is flooded, her crops ruined and, even though her home is still dry, the flood water surrounding it is rising every day.

In Singapore, her three children have safe and dry homes, but 55-year-old Madam Umalmarijan Abdul Latif won't hear of coming back.

The Singaporean refuses to leave her Batu Pahat home, where she lives with her Malaysian husband, for fear that looters would help themselves to her belongings.

The rains last month had wiped out crops in her 1.2ha farm, which is roughly the size of a football field.

With nothing to sell, Madam Umalmarijan has had to pawn her jewellery just to stay alive.

The housewife was forced to come to Singapore two weeks ago to pawn her gold necklace, which she bought for RM3,000 ($1,300) five years ago, and other pieces of jewellery.

'Luckily, I bought the gold when I had money,' she said. 'Now that we are facing hard times, we can pawn it. If I had just spent the money, how could we have survived now?'

Madam Umalmarijan, who has been living in Batu Pahat for the last six years, has been to Singapore three or four times to pawn her valuables in the past year.

Her house in Parit Jambul Tengah village was not flooded because of high bunds built around it.

Speaking in Malay to The New Paper on Sunday at her home, Madam Umalmarijan said: 'We can't ask for help from our friends because they are also affected by the flood. We don't want to trouble our children either because they are also financially strapped.'

Their daughter and two sons, who are grown-up, live in Singapore.

Madam Umalmarijan moved to Johor in 1998 with her husband, Mr Muhayat Haji Abas.

He was working as a bumboat operator in Clifford Pier, but his work pass was not renewed after he was diagnosed with heart problems.

The couple, who were living in a four-room flat in Queenstown, decided to move to Johor and take things slow.

But their lives have been thrown off-gear by the floods, which first struck last November.

Mr Muhayat, 56, said: 'It happened before Hari Raya Puasa. The tapioca was the first to go. Then the banana trees all died.'

He estimates the loss to be around RM5,000.

Madam Umalmarijan does not want to stay in Singapore because she is afraid that her home may be looted.

'Nowadays, it's not safe to leave your village home unguarded. If anything goes missing, whom are you going to blame?'

Although the daughter, Madam Zaleha Muhayat, 38, understands her parents' reasons for not wanting to leave the flooded village, she is still worried for them.

The coffee-shop cashier, who lives in a two-room Stirling Road flat with her children and brother, said: 'Every day I will call them a few times to find out the condition there.

'As a single parent with three boys, I have financial difficulties so I can't help my parents much.

'But if I have some spare cash, I will give them.'

Her sons, aged 8, 12, and 13, visited their grandparents' village last weekend , accompanied by her brother.

The eldest son, Mohd Riduwan, said: 'I am concerned about my grandparents. All their crops have perished. How will they survive?'

But the couple plans to stay put in their single-storey home.

Since The New Paper on Sunday visit last Tuesday, the water level has risen.

The villagers said that excess water from a nearby dam is being chanelled to low-lying areas which include this village.

Madam Umalmarijan said her husband had used cement to raise the bunds around their house, but it may not be enough to keep the water out.

She added: ''Our house has become an island. If it continues to rain, we will have to evacuate.'

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