No illegal activities in Tasik Kenyir - State Forestry Dept

HULU TERENGGANU - There were no illegal logging activities around Tasik Kenyir that led to the massive destruction when Hulu Terengganu was hit by flood on Sunday (Feb 27), said Terengganu Forestry Department director Roslan Rani.

He refuted allegations by certain parties, including netizens who shared false information about the flood on social media.

"Instead, based on the briefing by Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), the situation was caused by the occurrence of a landslide (near the Sultan Mahmud Power Station in Kenyir) on Sunday.

"A water surge occurred at the same time as the landslide, causing many trees, fallen logs, rubbish, debris and tree branches to flow into the river. That's why many claimed that the debris floating in the river, as had gone viral on social media, were logs,” he said on Thursday.

Yesterday, he surveyed the landslide area around the Jenagor Dam and Tasir Kenyir with state Tourism, Culture and Digital Technology Committee chairman Ariffin Deraman and TNB representatives.

Elaborating, Roslan said what happened at Tasir Kenyir was similar to the incident that occurred in Bentong, Pahang at the end of last year.

Asked what are the department's plans following the landslide incident, he said they would use a drone to take photographs for a better picture and to get the exact coordinates of the location.

"We will map out the sites before taking further action,” he said.

Yesterday, TNB said in a statement that the Sultan Mahmud Power Station's (SJSM) operations had been temporarily shut down since Sunday (Feb 27) after the high voltage transmission tower, which supplies electricity from SJSM to the National Grid, collapsed due to a landslide.

The unusually heavy rain since Friday (Feb 25) had resulted in a landslide that cut off access to SJSM at 4am that same day.

The sediment then flowed into Sungai Terengganu and, six hours later, another landslide occurred which caused a bridge and a 132kV transmission tower to collapse. Following that, TNB immediately stopped SJSM's operations.

However, TNB gave an assurance that during the temporary closure of SJSM, which has a total capacity of 400 megawatts, electricity supply to consumers in the East Coast would not be affected because it can be supplied through other sources via the National Grid system. - BERNAMA