Aku Pun Berpandangan Begini Juga!

Jarak masa siren pun menjadi pertanyaan
Sesetengah media kata siren dibunyikan sejam sebelum air dilepaskan
Dan di sini pula menyatakan 20 minit sebelum
Yang mana satu betul?
Ada TNB kata apa-apa selain dari mereka kata mereka ikut SOP?
Tun Dr. M, menteri mana yang patut letak jawatan atau lakukan harakiri ni?

Ringlet dam disaster is inexcusable

October 25, 2013

FMT ETTER, From Ravinder Singh, via e-mail

The disaster resulting in a few deaths and so much destruction of property from the sudden release of water from the Sultan Abu Bakar Dam in Cameron Highlands should not have happened if ‘proper procedures’ had been followed as claimed by the TNB.

It points more to dereliction of duty, incompetence of those responsible or even to the procedures themselves.

The reports claim that the siren was sounded a mere 20 minutes before the water was released. Sounding the siren is proper procedure, but is it proper procedure to give just 20 minutes warning, in the middle of a rainy night? Is it proper procedure to wait until the very last second before moving into action? Is there no procedure to take pr-emptive action at least one full day ahead or earlier of the water level reaching critically dangerous level?

A competent person monitoring the water level that was known to be rising due to the rainy weather should have been able to make a projection of the time it would take for the level to rise from safe to dangerous and critically dangerous.

In fact, charts should be available showing the time it would take for the water level to rise to the various levels or stages of criticality at different volumes of inflow into the dam over specified time-periods.

The justification given seems to imply that water was rising by the feet in minutes and there was no time to waste before releasing it. How could this be as the dam is a large pool of water and not like a pail under a fully turned-on tap?

While it is understandable that the purpose of a dam is to hold up as much water as possible for future use, it is extremely callous to hold on to this ‘procedure’ during rainy weather when water level is rising at or above a certain speed.

If this had been closely monitored, it should have been known more than 24 hours ahead that water will have to be released and adequate warning given to people living downstream. Releasing of the water should then have been made to balance with the inflow into the dam thus maintaining equilibrium at the dam’s safe level.

There is no way that the impending rise of the dam to the critically dangerous level could not have been seen a full day or even earlier if there are procedures for monitoring the rising level of the dam in rainy weather and those procedures were strictly adhered to.

If procedures were followed as claimed, then something is very wrong with the procedures themselves.

The persons responsible must be held responsible. They should be charged for manslaughter. And the minister responsible should commit hara-kiri. Dr M, please see to this.