'Venice' in Kuala Lumpur is the past. Now, it's in Pulau Pinang...

ONCE every few months, hundreds of people living along a major waterway called Sungai Pinang that cuts through a northeastern tract of Penang island are made to experience their own version of Venice. But it is not the idyllic holiday scenario one would wish for.

Almost every time there is heavy rainfall, the residents have been forced to reckon with water levels that rise – sometimes as high as 1.5m or 1.8m above ground level – within a couple of hours. Rushing to remove their valuables and belongings, whole families are made to wade in waist-deep or shoulder-deep waters around their homes.

The situation has been so severe and hopeless that many have kept boats outside their houses. The worst affected area is a stretch called Jalan P. Ramlee, or Caunter Hall, where the house in which the legendary singer Tan Sri P. Ramleee lived in his youth still stands.

Topographically, the large stretches of low-lying areas along the river’s banks are just prone to becoming flooded every time the river spills over. But what makes the situation particularly frustrating is that the crisis has been repeating every year without any respite.

This is despite the authorities having looked into the matter for decades. In fact, an initiative to have a full-scale flood mitigation project along the river has been on hold the last 20 years. This in one of the most developed cities in the country.

The seemingly perennial and age-old tragedy is emblematic of the great side-effects of rampant development, as has happened in Penang for the last 50 years, without serious attempt to address mitigation measures that are required. While most of Penang has been allowed to develop with projects costing millions of ringgit, the consequent impact on areas that feel the brunt of rampant hill-cutting, reclamation and forest-clearing have for some reason not been given their due attention.

The issue has now come to a point where the residents are bursting to the seams with impatience. And every time government officials and politicians show up at the areas, the people there can only react with scepticism and scorn.

They can hardly be blamed for harbouring such derision towards the authorities. Every time water enters their houses and compounds, there is significant damage, and the repetitive ritual of cleaning up the mess is cumbersome to say the least. The area has already recorded a few deaths, notably of children, during floods over the past decades.

Very recently, before floods that hit the area last weekend, the people had seen heavy rains in September 2008 and July last year that caused sea water to rise and the Sungai Pinang to overflow and rush into their houses.

But the problem in Penang is far-reaching. With intense development and encroachment into sensitive areas, floods are affecting many other places as well.

Just last month a large residential area near a new development project around Kampung Nelayan in Balik Pualu was also hit by flooding.

The federal authorities have approved allocations for waterways and sensitive flood-prone areas like Sungai Junjung, Valdor and Bukit Tambun. But work is still needed for other major rivers like Sungai Rambai, Sungai Juru and channels in Balik Pulau.

The problem is that although an allocation of RM150 million has been approved under the 9th Malaysia Plan for flood mitigation along Sungai Pinang, for some reason the project has not taken off. This project is expected to take about 18 months to complete. It has, however, been dogged with setbacks, especially in relocating the 205-odd families who live along the banks of the river.

In fact, it was all supposed to start in the early 90s only to be left stagnant after its first phase was completed. But the most important part is the implementation of the second phase which is the mitigation proper. The authorities did make headway in April this year after the Drainage and Irrigation Department began disbursing relocation payments for those affected, and have said the mitigation works should start by year-end.

But it remains to be seen now, if after half a century of neglect and inadequate development planning, people like those along Sungai Pinang – living on the fringes of one of the most developed cities in the region – can be spared the undesirable "Venice" they have been forced to suffer for ages.

From The Sun (Wed, 9 JUN 2010) - by Himanshu Bhatt:

The ‘Venice’ Penang can do without

Himanshu is theSun’s
Penang bureau chief.