After a heavy downpour in Penang, more havoc. This road collaspse is around 50 metres from the back door of the Tropical Spice Garden in northern Penang Island. Stress marks were spotted in 2015 along other stretches of the road further north in nearby Batu Ferringhi.
A landslide also struck the area at 5.30am.
Not long ago, while walking along a dim ‘five-foot way’ in town, my knee struck against a parked motorbike in the shadows. “Ouch! Man, that hurt,” I thought to myself, with none-too-pleasant thoughts about the person who had parked the bike there and the council for allowing such things to continue happening.
Now everyone can report hill clearing activities using Whatspp or email! Penang Forum held a press conference this morning to launch the Penang Hills Watch initiative.
This suicide at the second Penang bridge startled many not least due to the reported message purportedly left behind by the victim on Facebook. This statement by Parit Buntar MP Mujahid Yusof is worth pondering on.
Flash floods submerged Jalan Thean Teik in Farlim in front of All Seasons after a heavy downpour this evening. The areas around the state mosque, the Turf Club area and Jalan P Ramlee were also affected.
Welcome to the new ‘Thean Teik River’.
Today, I met someone I know who delivers newpapers to homes in his neighbourhood in Penang every morning on a part-time basis. He told me he used to deliver about 170-180 newspapers on his daily rounds about two years ago. Nowadays, that figure has fallen to around 80.
I am not sure what is going on here. The state government has announced that the “87 units per acre guideline, after deliberation with all stakeholders, will be replaced by a new guideline of 128 units per acre, whereby the units developed under this guideline cannot be less than 900 square feet and cannot be priced less than RM400,000…”
Tucked away in the PM’s Budget 2017 speech was this nugget:
240. The Government is also committed to upgrade public transport in rural areas through the following measures:
First: Implementation of the new East Coast Rail Line project connecting Klang Valley to the East Coast,
in phases. The 600-km rail will connect townships such as Port Klang, ITT Gombak, Bentong, Mentakab,
Kuantan, Kemaman, Kerteh, Kuala Terengganu, Kota Bharu, and ends in Tumpat, with an estimated cost of RM55 billion;
A cool RM55bn. Interesting that there are no qualms going for such a mega project at this time.
This comes at a time when the government also has no qualms about slashing the budget of public universites by almost 20 per cent!
Over the last few days, we have witnessed an exchange between the Penang state government and Gerakan over the economic and development performance of Penang.
Can it be business as usual for us? Why weren’t King Tides a big problem before? What has changed?