THE responsible thing to do now is to impose a moratorium on hillslope development, said Penang Forum.

Its representative Dr Lim Mah Hui said any activity that can threaten safety, regardless of whether the project is by the private sector or the public sector should be stopped.

He said when Hong Kong experienced many cases of landslide, it went into a full scale revamp that took many years.

“They have 200 engineers taking care of designated hillslopes. In Penang, we have only a few engineers.

“If our monitoring and enforcement is lacking, it is irresponsible to go on with such projects. That is exactly the point… if we lack monitoring and enforcement, then we should not do it,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Yesterday, Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said development has to continue with emphasis on proper controls and safety measures.

He also said enforcement, implementation and monitoring were “often our weaknesses”, when asked to comment on Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s remarks on development projects.

Following the incident in Paya Terubong, Dr Mahathir had said such projects, namely those proposed on hillsides or mountain slopes, should be studied to ensure that they don’t damage the environment and affect safety.

Lim, a former Penang Island City councillor, was among some 30 people who held a candlelight vigil at the Paya Terubong pair road construction site, where a landslide happened last Friday killing seven foreign workers.

Those gathered also paid tribute to 12 construction workers, including a Malaysian, who died last year in a condominium construction site landslide at Tanjung Bungah. Today is the first anniversary of that tragedy.

They laid flowers and pasted the names of all the victims in the two landslides outside the site in Paya Terubong.

The group criticised the state government for building infrastructure projects in hilly areas and highlighted environmental concerns.

One man, David Giam, said Penang was once known as Penang Darul Sampah (Rubbish Island) because of its lack of cleanliness before it was dubbed Penang Darul Banjir because of the recurrent flash flooding problem.

“Now it is Penang Darul Bencana (Disaster Island),” he said, referring to the tragedies.

Khoo Salma Nasution, who is also from Penang Forum, said these incidents were not “acts of God”.

“It is because proper precaution was not taken in these high-risk projects, which require a lot of environmental monitoring.

“If you have no capacity to monitor, stop these projects or slow down instead of developing like there is no tomorrow.

“There is a cost to be paid, and now it has been paid by these foreign workers,” she said, adding that Penang Forum will keep the conversation on such projects going.

“Change will happen when more people are aware,” she added. – October 21, 2018.