A SUDDEN thunderstorm at 6pm yesterday, as the Muslim community was getting ready to break fast, caused major damage in Sibu.

The squall uprooted trees and ripped up roofs, dumping them on power and telecommunication cables.

Residents said they had never experienced anything like it before.

“I could not see anything. Traffic flow was very slow,” Lerry Silas said, a teacher who was among the Catholics going for mass in the run-up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday this week.

As many Chinese families from out of town returned for the Ching Ming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, yesterday morning, traffic was also congested as they went out for dinner or looked for some Malay delicacies at the Ramadan bazaar in Sibu town square.

In a video circulated on social media, traders and customers were seen desperately clinging to the tent poles to keep the tents from being blown off the ground by the fierce wind, and screams could be heard in the background as lightning and thunder struck.

Sibu municipal council chairman Clarence Ting, in a Facebook post, said that Jalan Merdeka Barat resembled a war zone with trees coming down on fences.

He said he stayed with council workers, firemen, Works Department staff, and the Sibu 4x4 team to clear fallen trees on Jalan Merdeka Barat, Jalan Wong Soon Kai, Brooke Drive, Jalan Merdeka, Jalan Au Yong, Jalan Cherry, and Jalan Pahlawan.

“Yes, this day was an extraordinary day, it is rare to see such fury in the weather that lasted for 45 minutes.

“The only bright spot is that I didn’t hear of any casualties,” he wrote about what he called a ‘typhoon grade thunderstorm’.

Another video showed a wall collapsing a flat at Sibu police headquarters.

Sibu police chief Zulkipli Suhaili confirmed the incident and said that the storm had damaged six police apartments housing officers and their families.

However, he said there were no casualties reported. – Bernama, April 6, 2023.