THE fire and rescue department has urged the public to stay away from the landslide in Tanjung Bungah that has buried 14 people.

Edwin Galan Teruki, operations head from the fire and rescue department said that the area is still unstable and has been cordoned off.

“The area is not safe, I hope that the public will not come near the area, I hope that the people cooperate so that the operation can be conducted without any disturbances and also for your own safety.

“400x400 square feet is the area of the landslide, and the height is 35m, and the victims are buried around that,” he told reporters at the site today.

He also said digging operations have stopped to give way to search and rescue dogs to search for survivors.

“We have also brought 6 dogs and 4 of them are searching for the victims now, and we have not found anything yet, the search will continue… so the digging is stopped temporarily.

“We will not stop, but we will look at the situation, if we feel that it is too dark then we will stop the search and continue tomorrow morning,” he said.

He also said they have conducted an air search and have deployed more personnel for the search and rescue operations.

“As informed, we have found 3 victims, and 11 more victims have yet to be found.

“There are no difficulties, we just have to dig and move the land out, so we are doing this in stages to not disturb the land structure further.

He added that there are currently 150 personnel involved in the search and rescue operations.

Previously, long-time residents of the area had been deeply concerned over the hill-cutting, which had caused massive soil erosion, according to reports published in the past few months.

The Penang government is also going to set up a formal Commission of Inquiry into the landslide next week.

The fire and rescue department is expected to give an update later at 7.30pm. – October 21, 2017.