SEVENTY Orang Asli pupils in Kuala Berang, Terengganu lost their school to severe flood on Sunday and their headmaster fears it will take some time before they will have a place to learn again.

SK Sungai Berua headmaster Zaidi Ghani said he is worried clean-up and repair work will take a long time to complete.

“Almost the entire school building was destroyed by the flood. Repair work is expected to take a very long time, possibly more than three weeks.

“Currently, school is on break but our worry is that if repairs are not completed when the break ends on March 20, the children’s education will be affected,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Parts of the school that were destroyed include its six classrooms, meeting room, office, clinic, sports storage room, computer lab, library, the staff room and football field.  

“This doesn’t include the desks, chairs and textbooks. Everything is destroyed as the Orang Asli students keep their books at school.

“Also destroyed were 20 laptops and 30 computers which arrived just last year for the students,” Zaidi added.

The students here are from the Semaq Beri tribe, and live in dormitories on the school grounds.

Zaidi said the school has a back-up plan to convert the dormitories or the surau into classrooms if repairs aren’t completed by the time school reopens.

However, the dorms and the surau are not in ideal condition either, and are in need of their own repairs.

“The dorms were not as affected by the flood as they are on higher ground. But the roof of the building is leaking and it may not make a good classroom.

“The surau was also hit by the flood but the damage is not as severe; it just needs some cleaning.

The site has to be cleaned up before repairs can begin, said Zaidi, but this is difficult to do without equipment and tools as the electricity supply in the area has been cut off.

High cost of rebuilding

SK Sungai Berua has 70 students, 11 teachers and two staff members.

The school was built in the 1980s to cater to the Orang Asli community who moved there after being displaced by the construction of the Kenyir Dam.

The village near the school, Kampung Sungai Berua, is now home to around 600 Orang Asli.

Recalling how the flood destroyed the school, Zaidi said staff reported rising water levels in the school compound at around 3am on Sunday.

“Within just five minutes, a gush of water suddenly flowed down the nearby hill, bringing with it uprooted trees which has destroyed the school infrastructure.

“The school was submerged by water up to six metres high,” he said.

Zaidi estimates that the cost of repairs will not differ much from the cost of building a new school.

Although Terengganu, as an east coast state and facing the worst of the north-east monsoons, is used to annual flooding, Zaidi said the severity of the recent inundation was unexpectedly destructive.

He was also upset the destruction had disrupted plans to run school holiday programmes, such as a landscape beautification workshop and a sports camp.

“We had planned to have ping-pong classes during the school holidays. But the flood has destroyed all the equipment” he said.

A visit to the school found its compound and classrooms covered in a thick sludge and debris.

Desks and chairs were carried away by flood waters.

Alias Pelong, the chairman of the Sungai Berua Village Community Management Council, said Sunday’s flood was the most severe to have struck the village.

“There has never been a flood in this region. Even during the bad flood of 2014, this area was not submerged at all,” he said.

He said while the flood had destroyed the school, they were fortunate that the water had not submerged the villagers’ homes.

Terengganu Orang Asli students education management desk officer Mohd Sanusi Awang@Hamid said his department will focus on cleaning up and restoring the school compound.

“We will prepare a detailed report on the school’s destruction which will be forwarded to the district education office before submission to the Education Ministry.” – March 4, 2022.