Floods in July: Ecological disaster in Sibu?

Sarawak Voice sent in this comment which I thought I should highlight:

Talk about the dams in Sarawak? Hmm, apparently it seems that the government created an ecological disaster! My hometown is in Sibu, Sarawak (at the delta of the Mighty Rejang River) (and you) can clearly see the effects (of) logging, jungle clearing and hydro dam development up river.

Once a clean river now muddy and the river is getting shallow due to the mud that was washed from upriver. Even now at this moment, as I am typing this, we are experiencing floods! Yeap, floods in the month of July….

Read the details in this piece from The Borneo Post:

Troubled waters

Numerous efforts have been made to implement a flood mitigation plan for Sibu town but without any concrete follow-up action to date, residents complain they have been living in fear of floods whenever it rains for too long

FOR years now, the people of Sibu have had to put up with floods that seem to occur whenever there is heavy rain. While many are trying to bear with it, others are growing increasingly frustrated.

What causes floods? How can they be prevented? When will the nightmare end? These are questions commonly asked by people living along the mighty Rajang, the longest waterway in the state.

Poor drainage in the town and siltation in the Rajang are often blamed but there may be other contributors to the perennial problem that might have been overlooked.

Sibu residents are now asking besides heavy deforestation and earth-digging activities upstream, could development on the banks of the Rajang or over utilisation of these areas be another major cause of floods?

Are the on-going projects narrowing the channel for water to flow downstream by causing greater erosion of the river banks that leads to siltation? Click here for the full article.

Is there an ecological disaster in your area that has not yet been highlighted? Tell us about it and who you think could be responsible for it.