KOTA BELUD: A drought has been declared in the district following the recent hot weather and complete lack of rain for two weeks.
District officer Abdul Gari Itam said one particular village being affected was Kampung Puhus, in the Kadamaian constituency, as the villagers there depend completely on gravity water, which combines rainwater harvesting, elevated storage and gravity-powered filtration.
“At this point, only Kampung Puhus, which has 34 houses, or around 200 residents, and is located 32km from town, is affected. The complete lack of rain over the past two weeks means that the water reserve is dwindling,” he said, adding that the district office had declared the drought emergency at 3pm Thursday.
Gari said the district office had begun sending water tankers to the village since Thursday evening.
“We will send water two to three times a week to Kampung Puhus. Apart from Kampung Puhus, we have also received a request from a secondary school in the district to send water tankers, I believe for the use of the dormitories there,” he said.
Gari said he did not rule out the possibility that more villages in the district could be affected soon by the drought should it continue.
“In fact, we expect that more villages will be affected if it does not rain in the next few days,” he said.