Another tourist draw for Penang?: This flooded hill-slope could be one of the Wonders of the World
Floods hit the Chee Seng area near Tanjung Bunga in Penang during heavy rain over the weeked. Incredibly, even the hill-slope was flooded.
Observed a couple of residents in the area:
On 6 September 2008, at about 5.45pm during normal heavy rain (this is the rainy season), massive amounts of rain water flowed down from the hills, overflowing all drains and onto Jalan Chan Siew Teong itself. This is due to the hills being recently cut by two housing developers. As a result, the entire road became a river of about 20 feet wide and about 6 to 8 inches deep with muddy water running the entire stretch of the road.
Residents living there for the last 39 years were shocked. During that period, they had never encountered such freak flooding in the housing area as the entire road is on a steep slope bordering the hills of Chee Seng Gardens.
This is utterly ridiculous. A police report has been lodged against the developer responsible and a complaint has been lodged with the MPPP, but still there is no action. Most of the residents there are elderly people who cannot take action by themselves.
The residents want the authorities to force the developer to do proper remedial work on the Bolton and Beverly Heights projects and to act more responsibly.
In the first place, how were such projects approved on treacherous hill-slopes? Perhaps the previous BN administration can explain.
Now the residents along Jalan Chan Siew Teong, Chee Seng Gargens want the authorities to pull the developers into line so that they act responsibly while developing the area. Now do you see the danger of having an administration that is too “business friendly”?
The residents are not against development:
but NOT at the expense of causing trouble, nuisance and monetary loss to residents in the areas. That is all we are asking for. The time for irresponsible developer activities under the old administration – i.e. BN must end. We hope the new DAP administration can force the MPPP to serve ratepayers better by forcing the developers into responsible development.
More pictures inside
An act of God?…
…Not really… Here’s one of the suspects
Observed a couple of residents in a police report:
The developers responsible for the hill cutting are GLM Property Development Sdn Bhd of Surin Bolton Apartments and Taman Ratu Developers Sdn Bhd of Beverly Hills. Since the start of the hill cutting by Bolton Developers some three weeks ago and Taman Ratu earlier on, they have not made any attempt to cover the cut hill sides with plastic sheeting and this is causing the severe water run off with massive amounts of silt, debris and stones. The drains along all the roads are thus clogged with debris and sand within minutes every time it rains heavily.
Irresponsible development on treacherous hill-slopes
Fancy a cruise in your kitchen? The suffering and hardship of ordinary people is too much to bear
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Dear Anil,
Please use whatever leverage you have to get the Penang State Government to go after the irresponsible hillside destroyers!
They are not developers! Developers should be people who improve on things not be the CULPRITS WHO DEVASTATE PRISTINE HILLSIDES AND FOREST RESERVES all in the name of the mighty Ringgit!!!
I for one wish to see Chief Minister Saudara Lim Guan Eng throw the book at the people responsible for this ecological destruction!!!
We want to see justice be upheld and put to practice not just tease!!!
i wrote a short article to the STAR editor many years ago when i noticed several high rise apartments destroying the greens up by the hillside. It was published.
What is scary is that from the photos where BOLTON is developing, i see that the water flows very freely. What happens when there are 2 blocks of apartments there? Will the foundation be eroded?
I hope the developer or rather the purchasers take note!
Amazingly awful The pictures speak a thousand, no million words, Anil. You asked “Will Penang follow Selangor in banning hill-slope deveopment?” The answer is IT MUST! The state government must act before there is loss of human lives. As it is, the flood damage is extensive and many Penangnites have to bear the brunt of repairs etc.
In Hokkien we say “poot sampah” (clean up rubbish”)..The state government now has to deal with all the “rubbish” that has been left behind by the previous one! Like all good things worth waiting for, it will take time for the benefits of applying CAT (competency accountability and transparency) to be apparent, and I’m all for it, but it looks like YB LGE and crew have landed with someone else’s feline…Clean Another’s Trash!
I think the basic thing we can do at grassroot level is to keep our state clean, and the drains unclogged.. and can something be done to educate/chastise/punish those who don’t? Any suggestions?
I have some more pictures taken from my place which have a better view of the damage done by Surin (by Bolton) & Beveryly Hills (by Taman Ratu)..PS: I am staying in Coastal Towers
let me know how to send the pix to you if you want them
Not only is that area affected, the hillside along Miami Beach is also being cleared. i have some pics of the clearing as well as the brown seawaters of Miami Beach., how do i send them to you?
Does these developers have proper EIA reports? are these EIA reports adequate/ of sufficient quality? if not who was responsible to approve such projects?
am i right to recall that towards the end of Lim Chong Eu’s government and the Highland Towers incident, hillside projects were suppose to be banned on Penang Island? if so, when did they start approving them again?
Your photos provide a vivid illustration of why Penangites are so pissed off with the KTK administration.
well, i suppose the developer has followed all the troublesome procedure to obtain the approval.
I think the DAP-PR state government in Penang has to act NOW. The MPPP in Penang has to act NOW.
All the DAP-PR’s previous talk about being different from the BN is meaningless if there is no action taken immediately to solve this problem.
We cannot merely hope to goodness that the two developers gouging out the Chee Seng hillsides will see reason and act to conserve the environment.
CM Lim Guan Eng and MPPP YDP, please take note. Developers like GLM and Taman Ratu don’t give a damn about the safety of community residents or about the environment! All they care about it their dirty profit margin, their fat bank accounts and their next overseas holiday.
Thus, unless both the State Government and MPPP’s acts vigorously to curb the two above developer’s ugly profiteering attitude, the people of Penang would have wasted their vote voting in the DAP-PR state government on March 8th.
ACT NOW! SLAP A STOP-WORK ORDER ON GLM PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT SDN BHD AND TAMAN RATU DEVELOPERS SDN BHD IMMEDIATELY TO FORCE THEM TO ENSURE THAT ALL ENVIRONMENTAL MITIGATION AND SAFETY MEASURES ARE GENUINELY IMPLEMENTED AT ONCE.
ACT NOW! STOP ALL HILLSIDE DEVELOPMENT ONCE AND FOR ALL IN PENANG..!
Hi Anil,
Unbelievable.
Penang is a shell of what I used to know as a kid.
The whole hill looks like its coming down in a river.
When Mahathir became PM I opted to spell Development with an ‘i’ so it reads “Devilopment.” Total insensitivity to nature’s beauty and mere lipservice to environmental issues goes hand in hand with unmitigated greed and unlimited access to an utterly corrupt government is ultimately what causes these terrible floods, landslides, and sinkholes.
If my dad was a Deviloper I would immediately disown him. Integrity is worth a great deal more than Datukships.
someone should compile and make a website dedicating to the legacy of penang ‘administration, development and social affairs’ under the former CM of penang and the gerakan party.
this is so that it will forever remind penang people and people of other states on the importance of putting the right people in public office for their future reference
These two projects will permanently destroy the environment & landscape and even the safety of Tanjung Bungah. We must all do something serious to stop these projects immediately. Anil, I am all for positive actions, you got my email, please do contact me. I have just moved back from KL and am so disheartened by all these.
Andrew Aeria
If the Council ask the developer to implement the environmental mitigation and safety measures, in means the project is to go ahead and take measures that the incidence will not repeat again. Even if the developer through the contractor construct a sediment pond and comply with the regulations, the design is only 1 in 5 years storm and the recent rain could be 1 in 50 years storm or more. If the Coouncil is to ask them to stop work, then the half completed construction will be a sore eye and breed dengue and possible other mosquitoes related diseases and who is going to take care of it if they are half completed. So what you want?
I think, we should not allow Penang High, Maxwell Hills, Cameron Highland and Genting Highland to expand too base on incidence in Selangor and Penang.
Other places got flooded too when rain falls for three days in a row. Places like Terengganu, Kelantan during Dec-Jan period when wind blows from South China Sea. Now is Penang’s turn when wind blows from Indian Ocean and brings lots of water. There’s nothing political about it. Kelantan and Terengganu, no hillside development, also flooded. Those trade winds – not only they bring the immigrants, they also bring water. So Penangites, relax. Ask the Kelantanese and Terenganuwians and you what they will say? It’s just WATER!
[...] For a full story of this, check out Anil Netto here. [...]
Well in the options given I had marked not sure as the reason for the floods. Simply put it is the buyers. Supply and demand will have to meet in order for a market to exist. Let us not blame others but overselves for being so inconsiderate towards mother nauture. We Malaysian are very insensitive towards the environment. Only when we see floods we cry foul.
YB Teh (ADUN for Tanjung Bungah), should take note and take necessary action to ensure such incident recur.
Please accept/publish more photos of the hillslope sliding & flooding, including some from the Miami Green/BF area. Maybe we can embarrass the govt into doing something? Photos of drains plugged with garbage, another cause of flooding, should be posted as well. Maybe a separate site?
[...] Medan Damansara residents live in fear and residents near to hill slope developments clean up and count the costs in Penang, residents living in fear of development by Gasing Meridian Sdn. Bhd. (GMSB) on Bukit Gasing [...]
Correction,
YB Teh (ADUN for Tanjung Bungah), should take note and take necessary action to ensure such incident will NOT recur.
Becakayu is not looking at the issue wholesomely. Places like Kelantan & Terengganu are seasonnally flooded due to the low lying areas near to the coast, and the severe amounts of water dropped by rain over a short period of time. They have been historically flooding.
However, in Chee Seng Gardens, Tanjong Bunga this is a hill slope. Floods do not happen on a hill slope unless something has gone wrong, seriously wrong. I have lived in this area for nearly 40 years and there has not been a flood due to water run off from the hills in this manner until the recent hill cutting exercise began.
So becakayu, do realise that we are not saying that the flooding in the East Coast states are not bad. They are. And our government should be taking efforts to minimise such flooding.
However, to allow hill cutting will only make worse many areas: -
a. landslides and hill collapse
b. huge water run off, flooding areas immediately surrounding the hill cut area and all low lying areas below the hill
c. Huge amounts of siltation, drain clogging,
d. Loss of life, be it drowning or burried in tons of mud slides or even hill movement as in the Highland case
e. Sea life destruction due to huge amounts of mud being swept into the sea (pollution) – fishermen suffer too evventually. It is a cycle of destruction
So do realise that this is a problem and we Malaysian as a country must address it. Saying things like it floods in the East Coast states do NOT help at all and if we have nothing concrete to say, maybe we should review the facts before commenting and thus comment intelligently
George
Those of us who are Penangites know how our home island used to be till Koh Tsu Koon took over from Lim Chong Eu.
Rampant hillside developments @ I’d rather call them ecological destructions, have destroyed the pristine rainforest’s of our island ’s water catchment areas and succeeded in robbing the Penang Islanders of their once famous rivers that flowed with clean, drinkable waters.
Water that once drew the British to stop over at our home island and stock up on their drinking water supplies before sailing on to China.
Penang Island has been destroyed by the TIDAK APA ATTITUDE of the previous Gerakan governments.
Sungai Pinang is dead.
The Jelutong foreshore is stinking with accumulated rubbish dumped indiscriminately by the MPPP all those years from the Jelutong Shell jetty area stretching to the Chinese kampong at Jalan Tokong Batu, besides my village at Jalan Kota Giam.
Who do I blame?
The previous state governments under GERAKAN.
Now, we all see the hills of Penang being destroyed in the name of development.
Devilopment – to borrow Antares’s coinage.
Anil, we need to save our home island!
Let’s galvanise an action group – a ‘Save Penang’ task force!
What say you and others here?
[...] In recent month, we have heard Redha attempts to justify hillslope developments and claiming that many countries have successfully developed on steep hillslopes. Sadly, Redha conveniently forgets that our planning authorities and developer are really much more interested in profits. Yes, both do make profits. Many of you would have seen and read about the agony faced by Medan Damansara folks. However, if you wish to know how much damage hillslope development can inflict on innocent residents in the vicinity of “malaysia boleh” approvals, do go to this site. http://anilnetto.com/accountability/amazing-ever-seen-a-flooded-hill-slope/ [...]
Adun Teh, please help understand Taman Ratu is going to build another row of semidees at the foothill opposite the Straits Regency Apartments in Beverlly Hill. The developer just cleared only a portion of the hill behind Surin’s project and that causes a massive flooding at Chee Seng Gardens recently. Can you imagine what will happen when they clear the whole stretch up to the existing water tank. God bless the residents at Chee Seng Garden.