Portable pool saves family amid Sabah flood
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Six children were ferried to a neighbour's house on higher ground using an inflatable pool.
PHOTO: SCREENGRABS FROM JESSICA L YUN YUN/FACEBOOK
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KOTA KINABALU – Mr Azriel Nicol Jue Panjan usually spends his free time with his family in their inflatable swimming pool during weekends at their home in Penampang in Sabah, Malaysia.
Little did he know that the pool, measuring about 2.74m long and 1.5m wide, would turn out to be a lifesaver for his family and relatives as major floods hit their homes in Kampung Inobong Kimoligan on June 30.
Mr Azriel, 29, used the inflatable pool to ferry six children, including his one-year-old infant and two-year-old daughter, to higher ground as flood waters gushed into his and his relatives’ houses.
In a video of the incident, Mr Azriel could be seen pushing the pool with two other men, whom he identified as his father-in-law and brother-in-law.
“In our minds, we just wanted to get the kids to safety; that was our priority,” he said when contacted on July 2.
He said the other children in the floating pool were his in-laws’ children, adding that the youngest was his baby and the eldest was a 10-year-old boy.
“I am slightly over 1.5m tall, but the water was at least 2.1m high at the time. We were swimming as we steered the pool to send the children to our neighbour, who was living on a hill about 100m away,” Mr Azriel said.
“We were in a race against time because the water was still rising as it rained heavily. We could not fit everyone in the pool as it would sink.”
He added that after the children were taken to the neighbour’s place, he and his in-laws returned home to retrieve his mother-in-law and pregnant sister-in-law.
“We could not salvage any of our property. My car and two of our motorcycles were submerged in water, along with all our other belongings and valuables.
“I think we have lost about RM15,000 (S$4,300) worth of belongings in the floods,” said Mr Azriel, who works as an electricity metre reader.
While floods are nothing new in the area, he said that this was the worst one to strike Penampang in recent times.
Other neighbours who lived on elevated ground and had never experienced floods before, according to him, complained that the flood waters – at some points nearly knee-high – were inundating their homes.
He said the downpour started late in the morning on June 30, but they did not think much of it.
“We took notice only when water began to stream into my relative’s house, located at a lower level than mine. But the water rose quickly and the undercurrent was also strong, so we decided to get the children to safety first,” he said, adding that the non-stop rain caused the nearby Sungai Inobong to breach its banks, further aggravating the situation.
Mr Azriel said they managed to get in touch with a rescue team but claimed that help never came.
They later learnt that the rescue agencies were responding to more than 200 distress calls that day.
“I am just thankful my family and relatives are safe. Instead of waiting for others to come to our aid, we decided to do something ourselves,” he said.
While the floods had receded, he said, they were still staying in a relative’s house because the water supply had not been restored in their village. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
