Two migrant workers were killed in a landslide at a construction site in Bukit Kukus in Penang last Friday, The Jakarta Post reported.
A 35-year-old Bangladeshi and a 19-year-old Indonesian were likely to have been inside containers that served as living quarters at the construction site when the disaster happened, Saadon Moktar, director of Penang’s Fire and Rescue Department, said.
The bodies of the two victims had been found, said Moktar. Three other people — Baktiar and Suberi from Indonesia and an unnamed Myanmar citizen — had been reported missing by their family and friends.
The director said the actual number of missing people was yet to be confirmed, once rescue efforts were completed.
A task force called Ops Lumpur was launched by the state government after the general election in Malaysia. A consultant civil engineer linked to the operation came forward and said that not a single construction project in the state had followed the mandatory soil erosion mitigation protocols, The Star reported.
The consultant, who remains anonymous, said that all contractors had failed to perform soil erosion measures, and that was why streams near construction sites turn yellow during rainy days.
In Penang, it had been raining almost every day last week. Bad weather, along with the lack of proper mitigation of soil erosion, has led to landslides.