PUTRAJAYA, Dec 18 — Short-term preventive measures, including covering the exposed slop with tarpaulin sheets, have been conducted at the Father’s Organic Farm campsite in Batang Kali to avoid further landslides.
The Public Works Department (PWD) said in a statement today that they were also diverting water flow at the surface and existing drains to avoid run-off from entering the landslide area and installing tilt sensors to monitor soil movement in the area.
These measures were taken after an initial inspection by the department’s slope forensics and engineering team revealed there was active underground water flow at the location of the failed slope, especially in the camping grounds.
“The results of the initial findings revealed two slope failures at the same location with intervals of 20 minutes to 30 minutes between them.
“The first slope failure most likely occurred at the campsite, which caused the toe of the road slope to weaken and led to the (second) larger landslide,” the department said.
The 300-metre landslide at a height of 70 metres that hit the campsite at 2.42am Friday morning, moving an estimated 450,000 cubic metres of soil, resulted in the death of 24 victims so far, with nine still missing out of a total of 94 victims. 61 people were saved.
The department’s findings also revealed that the road shoulder of B66 Section 13.0 from the direction of Gohtong Jaya heading to Batang Kali had fallen and was damaged by the slope failure, and there were long tension cracks on the left lane of the route heading to Batang Kali due to the landslide.
“Based on these findings, the highly saturated soil and high pore water pressure due to the collected underground water at the bottom of the slope at the campsite had weakened the toe of the B66 slope, and led to a retrogressive failure of the road slope,” the department said.
The PWD also said that a detailed investigation is expected to be conducted at the site immediately after search and rescue operations are completed.
Also, the B66 state road of Batang Kali- Genting Highlands route has been completely closed on December 16 following the landslide at Section 13.0.
— Bernama
