Flood at home
Dec 30th, 2006 by Tian
My old house in Melaka was hit by flood too. I remember in the 70s, when I was quite small, we had a big flood. Our whole family had to be evacuated.
This time round, though it was not as serious, the psychological trauma for the residents was not less. Our family is no longer living there. We moved to another house on the same street when I was Form 5. My late grandmother, who passed away in 2005, used to live here. I couldn’t imagine the trouble she would suffer if she were still here.
For quite a long time I had not visited this old nostalgic place where I grew up. Because of the flood, I specially made a trip to see my old neighbourhood (on Dec 28).
Andrew (pix below) was my childhood friend. He just lives a few doors away from me. He and other neighbours recalled the bitter experience of the flood.
The flood water in fact was in fact just a few centimeters below the threshold of the houses on this street. Whenever a vehicle went pass, the water will overflow into the house. It was real messy.
Flood has gone now but the nightmare is not yet over. My neighbourhood is now a dengue infested area. At different street corners, the authorities hung banners “Awas, kawasan dengi!”. My neighbours wondered whether the mosquitoes are literate enough to read the sign and cease preying on human.
The cause of dengue was simply the poor drainage around this area. I was told the wife of my next door neighbour passed away recently due to dengue. Sad, and angry too. This is a simple issue of public sanitary How could the authorities so unconcerned?
