Due to torrential rains, flood rivers flooded urban areas and blocked all traffic on the main roads.
Le Monde with AFP
More than 22,000 people were evacuated on Sunday, December 19, in Malaysia because of the worst floods known by the country for seven years, according to the government’s figures. The torrential rains that have fallen by Friday on this country of Southeast Asia accustomed to the monsoon storms at the end of the year have provoked floods of rivers, flooding urban areas and preventing traffic on major roads.
A government website reports more than 22,000 flood victims in eight states in the country, including more than 10,000 in the Pahang, at the center of Malaysia.
“by surprise. “
The Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, expressed his surprise to see the richest state of the country, the Selangor, which surrounds the capital, Kuala Lumpur, caught in floods, forcing more than 5,000 people to leave their house.
“It happened as if surprised, because the monsoon season (…) rarely causes floods to Selangor,” he said at a press conference, late in the evening of Saturday.
From a government website, the water level remained dangerous on Sunday morning, in six states in the center and northeast. While the rain has calmed in some areas, the meteorological service warned that precipitation should continue in some parts of Pahang.
Malaysia has seen its worst floods in 2014, forcing 118,000 people to leave their homes.