BENTONG, Dec 31 (Sin Chew Daily) — Besides deluge of mud and rocks, flood victims’ houses were damaged by huge pile of logs carried by flood waters from the hills.

The logs, stalled by the houses and flatten some of them, were remnants in the hills after land clearance.

Flood victims’ homes in Sungai Perdak, in Bentong and Karak were damaged by timbers gushing down from hills by strong flow of flood waters on 18 December last year which led to suspicion that illegal logging activities were carried out.

Tang Thien Seng, chairman of Pahang division of Agricultural Protection and Development Association of Malaysia (APDAM) refuted rumors that the huge pile of timbers were illegal logging activities.

Tang, with 40 years of planting durian, rubber trees, oil palm and hill clearance, said the logs were left behind after clearing the hill as the forestry department did not allow those timber to be sold.
He said the authorities should simplify procedures of land clearance and not leaving behind the timber after clearance work was completed.

Tang said one needed a permit issued by the authorities to sell the logs and operators ended up leaving the logs behind. After some time, the timber piled up in the hill increase in volume.
Tang said based on his observation in Karak and Sungai Perdak, majority of these were chopped logs but not trees which were uprooted.

“The Pahang Forestry Department should emulate the Selangor Forestry Department of issuing a one-off temporary permit for developers to remove the logs after clearing the land. Currently this is not allowed in Pahang,’’ he said.

Pahang forestry department director Datuk Dr. Mohd Hizamri Mohd Yasin, in a statement, said photos taken by drones at the Road Transport Department enforcement station at the Karak road in Bentong and Sri Telemong bridge in Bentong confirmed that the timber tsunami was not caused by illegal logging activities in the Lenteng Forest Reserve.

It said there were there were traces of mudslides and landslides where strong flow of waters gushed down from hills carried the logs to Temeriak River, Kerau River and Timbul River.

He refuted rumors on social media that illegal logging activities were carried out in Sungai Gapoi as the area was 16km away from Sri Telemong bridge and 23km from the Road Transport Department enforcement station.

Dr Mohd Hizamri said a helicopter would be deployed in early January to carry out further investigation to ascertain the root cause and the location of the mudslides and landslides.

He also suggested to gazette the government land along the river at the Lenteng Forest Reserve area as permanent forest reserve.