The Star
The Star
  • 2 months ago
Rescuers searching for the missing Indian national who fell into the sinkhole on Jalan Masjid India in Kuala Lumpur have detected a 15m stretch of backlog from the sewer chamber at Wisma Yakin, approximately 44m from the site.

Fire and Rescue Department director-general Datuk Nor Hisham Mohammad said their work would now focus on clearing the obstruction to the water flow in the sewage pipes.

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Transcript
00:00I am informing you about the operation that we have carried out overnight until the early morning.
00:07The next operation will start at 5.00 p.m. until the early morning tomorrow.
00:15We hope it will be shorter.
00:17First, based on the two tests that we carried out, namely the release of the water tank on the first day and the second day,
00:30which we carried out, namely two from Ground Zero and two from Wisma Yakin.
00:35From Ground Zero, from the two that we released, and based on our observation in each chamber,
00:43the water did not come out.
00:48Second, we started the process at 12.00 p.m. using two main approaches.
00:56The first is to divert some of the incoming flow and we divert the flow to reduce the water level.
01:05Second, at the same time, we also used two high-performance pump modules, 10,000 and 20,000 liters.
01:16The result, at 4.00 a.m., we were able to lower the water level to 0.8 meters from 1.5 meters high.
01:29We entered the chamber from two directions, up and down.
01:36From above, we found that there was no real water reduction, only 0.3 meters.
01:44But at the level below, we saw that it went down to almost half from the pipe.
01:51After we saw and read the distance of the movement of the camera,
01:56we believe that there is an obstacle in the pipe from the distance of the main hole of Wisma Yakin,
02:037.6 meters above us, causing a backlog to debris, which is estimated to be at least 15 meters.
02:16At 5.00 a.m., we started the effort to remove the backlog.
02:24So, we have started the effort, the team has started to remove the backlog.
02:30Tonight, we will repeat again the method to reduce the water level by closing part of it.
02:37We now know that six have been closed.
02:40We will also mobilize the same pump tonight to reduce the water level.
02:48If we succeed in removing the backlog, we hope that we will see all the images in the shape that I said is estimated to be at least 15 meters.
03:02That's what we're going to do.
03:04At the same time, we have also brought yesterday and this morning,
03:09four experts from the Bomba and Exploration Academy of East Malaysia to see the possibility of diving.
03:18Based on our assessment, the speed of the water behind or after Wisma Yakin,
03:25it is at a rate that we feel that we can only move a little.
03:30But our biggest concern, our biggest risk is the backlog.
03:35And based on our assumption, the backlog will be at least a cubic meter above us,
03:40which is at least 100 cubic meters or 100 tons of fresh water.
03:44So, if we just remove the backlog, we know that the risk to the diver is very high.
03:53So, our priority is to remove the backlog.
03:55This afternoon, we will start to use the method of pulling little by little by teams from three agencies,
04:03namely Bomba, APM and also DBKL.
04:06And tonight, after we reduce the water level, we will start to use high pressure from the IWK.
04:14Once we have a safe situation, we will evaluate it again.
04:18If the situation is safe for us to go down, then we will decide the next step.
04:24But at the moment, I can say that the risk is too high for us to send the team in.
04:31Because the first thing is that the pipe is full.
04:33The second thing is that it is forced from the fear that the blockage will collapse.