Twenty four people, including seven children, have now been confirmed dead following a landslide which hit a campsite at Batang Kali in the Hulu Senlangor District of Selangor State, Malaysia, on Friday 16 December 2022. A further seven people are missing following the incident, although it is now thought there is little chance of finding further survivors, as the site has been covered by a thick layer of heavy, suffocating mud. Rescue teams from the Selangor Fire and Rescue Department with Dogs are still working at the site, but this is now essentially a search for the bodies the missing.
The owners of the campsite, at the Father's Organic Farm, about 50 km north of Kuala Lumpur, are being questioned by the Royal Malaysian Police following the incident. Local authorities report that the site lacked permission for a campsite, being licensed for organic farming only, but that there were in fact three separate campsites on the property.
At the time of writing, only a single victim has been named, Nurul Azwani Kamarulzaman, 31, from Kuala Lumpur, who is described as a kitchen assistant at a school who was visiting the site on a two night trip with teachers and pupils from the school where she worked.
The event is reported to have been triggered by several days of heavy rain associated with Malaysia's Northeast Monsoon. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall.
Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall.
Monsoons are tropical sea breezes triggered by heating of the land during the warmer part of the year (summer). Both the land and sea are warmed by the Sun, but the land has a lower ability to absorb heat, radiating it back so that the air above landmasses becomes significantly warmer than that over the sea, causing the air above the land to rise and drawing in water from over the sea; since this has also been warmed it carries a high evaporated water content, and brings with it heavy rainfall. In the tropical dry season, the situation is reversed, as the air over the land cools more rapidly with the seasons, leading to warmer air over the sea, and thus breezes moving from the shore to the sea (where air is rising more rapidly) and a drying of the climate.
Malaysia has become increasingly landslip-prone in recent years due to extensive deforestation, which leaves soil exposed to heavy tropical rainfall. Concerns have also been raised about the large number of construction and new development sites on steep hillslopes in urban areas, where workers are particularly vulnerable to landslip events during the Monsoon Seasons.
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