Six months worth of Malaysia’s average annual rainfall fell within five days across the east coast of the country last week, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said early Tuesday.
One of the worst hit areas was Kelantan which recorded 1,442mm of rain between November 26 and 30.
Ibrahim said the high rainfall led to flooding that forced a large number of people in Kelantan and Terengganu to be evacuated.
The recorded rainfall at Irrigation and Drainage Department stations in Tanah Merah and Tumpat, exceeded 1,167mm in just five days.
“According to the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia), the reading (in Kelantan) was at 1,442mm, an extraordinarily high level of rainfall. In Terengganu, MetMalaysia’s Besut station recorded 1,761mm of rain during the same period.
“Overall, the (average) rainfall was 1,349mm, far beyond our expectations,” Anwar told the Dewan Rakyat (Parliament) on Tuesday.
He also said the government is preparing for the forecast monsoon surge as announced by MetMalaysia, expected to start after Dec 8.
By Tuesday, some residents in the town of Tumpat were returning to submerged homes and shops as deadly floodwaters eased in some areas.
People who returned to their homes found many had collapsed, with parts of walls, roofs and broken furniture lying scattered in pools of water.
Muhamad Alim, a 56-year-old shopkeeper whose food store was inundated, recalled fast-rising waters in his home and his grandchildren crying as the flood surged on Saturday night.
“Electricity was cut off, and there was no water supply. So, we were stuck, sitting there as if we were in the middle of the sea, surrounded by water,” he told Reuters.
“You could hear the sound of water rushing cutting through the silence of the night.”
Six people have died in Malaysia and more than 150,000 were evacuated during the height of the floods last week, government data showed.
In Thailand, the death toll is 25, and more than 300,000 households were still affected, the interior ministry said.
The number of people in temporary shelters in Malaysia fell to just under 95,000 on Tuesday morning, though the authorities remain on guard for a second wave of floods this week.
Malaysia’s Meteorological Department expects a wind convergence to begin on Tuesday, potentially bringing heavy showers, with a monsoon surge to follow on Dec. 8.
In Thailand, the Meteorological Department warned people in the south of the country to beware of heavy to very heavy rains and possible flash flooding and overflows from Dec. 3-5.