Tuesday, January 06, 2015

Mission #Banjir2014 in Kelantan Part 3

We were informed that the road access to Kok Keli was still not accessible. The water level is low that going there by boat might be more hazardous. Its the bottom mud which was brought over by the fast streams during the peak of the flood. Too dodgy for 4Wds and too shallow for boats. Thus only the 6 of us went back to our head quarters in HUSM for regroup and recalculation of mission. 
Prof Idzwan had a meeting with Dr Seri Buana, a doctor and activist with MRCS in Kelantan. He is very experienced in his home ground and he was looking for groups of doctors to follow him deeper into the affected area. A lot of areas are now more accessible but due to political reason, not much help has been deployed there. From the current situation, we knew that lots of publicity was given to Kuala Kerai and Manik Urai, thus multiple NGOs are stationed there now. Tanah Merah was badly affected. Until the time we were in discussion, electricity, water and phone lines were non existent since the first wave. 
 It was decided to cover Tanah Merah area and the first destination was to meet with the Penggawa of Tanah Merah. (Head of all Penghulus). We headed to the District office the net morning on our lovely Pertanian truck! (haha here we go again!) Along the way, it was obviously scary and inimaginable what it would have looked like during the peak. I cannot imagine how the whole of our trip to Tanah Merah was flooded with water, totally submerging our transport (we could see it from the mud markings on the trees/poles) 
As usual, Izzat assigned us to the most remote area. Me and Muiz were to go to the furthest point where access to the kampung was only established 2 days back. The access in is only through a sampan from Gobek, Gual Ipoh district. We were told to be prepared and totally on our own. No MRCS officers following us so its us and how we communicate with the locals. It was a challenge but insha Allah an interesting one. 

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