KINABATANGAN: A large-scale search and rescue operation (SAR) has been launched for 14 people who went missing in a forest reserve here.
Police are leading 80 people comprising its personnel, villagers, firemen and forest rangers in an effort to track down the missing people in the Ulu Segama Forest Reserve.
District police chief Superintendent A. Sahak Rahmat said the operation was launched after a report was lodged by villagers two days ago.
“Investigations revealed that a group of five men who went fishing at Sungai Bilong on June 21 failed to return home, prompting (a nine-member search team to attempt to track them down).
“Until Sunday, none of them had returned,” Sahak said, adding that the SAR was launched on the same day and continues until today.
Two 4-wheel-drive vehicles, believed to have been used by the missing group, were found at the edge of the forest reserve, Sahak said.
Traces of plastic packets and empty cigarette boxes in areas where the search party had rested were also found, but no signs of the missing villagers, aged between 20 and 58, were detected, he added.