Karak landslide: It was like a movie, said escaping driver
Naimran (left) with Ibrahim.
PETALING JAYA: For one road user, abandoning his car to run from the Karak Highway landslide felt “like something from a movie”.
Naimran Yunos, 37, was driving through the heavy rain when a tanker
in front of his Mini Cooper suddenly went ‘melintang’ (across) the
highway on Wednesday evening.
“We thought it skidded due to the slippery road, but suddenly we saw
this huge amount of mud and water falling off the cliff on our right,”
he told The Star Online in the wee hours of Thursday.
The wedding card manufacturer was travelling back to Kuantan from
Seremban, Negri Sembilan, where his kadlawo.com venture had just opened a
new store.
His 62-year-old father Ibrahim Mohd Yunos - the only passenger in the vehicle - urged Naimran to leave the car and run away.
“The big wall of mud was rushing towards us very quickly. We had to
run. I was the first to stop my car. At the back of us, so many cars
stopped and were honking all over. It was quite a panic situation,
everyone was reversing,” he said.
Luckily, there was a TUDM (Royal Malaysian Air Force) lorry nearby.
The personnel onboard opened up the vehicle so those stranded by the
mudslide could get on board.
“They were on a trip to pick up something in Kuantan. There were
three vehicles in a convoy from Kuala Lumpur, two had already passed the
landslide point,” Naimran added.
In his panic, he left his phone and his wallet in the car, but managed to retrieve it safely once the situation had stabilised.
“My car’s exterior is damaged, but it can still start. For us, it’s a
first-hand, once-in-a-lifetime experience. Now, we are very, very
hungry,” he added.
Describing the area as “pitch dark”, he said workers were still clearing the trees as of midnight.
The Star online
Thursday 12 November,2015.
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