Rescuers race to find survivors of deadly landslide at Malaysia campsite

KUALA LUMPUR: Rescuers raced to find survivors of a deadly landslide on Friday, which killed at least 21 people, including women and children, near the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. The landslide struck a campsite in the town of Batang Kali in Selangor, where families were sleeping in their tents on early Friday morning.
Nearly 100 people were swept away and about a dozen are still missing, feared buried under the heavy soil, the Fire and Rescue Department told reporters, as hundreds of personnel from search agencies continued to scour thick mud and downed trees. “Total victims are 94 individuals, those confirmed dead are 21 individuals, those still missing are 12 people,” Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters at the site.
Environmental Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said in a press release that the 500-meter-long landslide that moved 450,000 cubic meters of soil was likely a result of an embankment slope failure. The campsite belonged to Father’s Organic Farm, located about 4 km from the Genting Highlands resort, which describes itself as a child-friendly attraction promoting organic fruit and vegetable planting. The farm has been reportedly operating the campsite illegally.
The landslide was the deadliest such incident in the Selangor region since the 1995 incident in which a massive mudslide buried 20 people on the road leading up to Genting Highlands. Environmental group Sahabat Alam Malaysia urged the government on Friday to promptly investigate the tragedy and make the outcome of the probe open to the public.
“How was a campsite allowed on a hilly area? Photographs showed that a major slope failure has occurred under the highway nearby in the upper reaches of the site. What triggered that to happen?” Meenakshi Raman, the group’s president, said in a statement. “Time and again, we have been warning about allowing earthworks and other forms of activities on highlands and hillslopes, which are environmentally sensitive areas. The root causes of the tragedy must be investigated and publicly disclosed.”