Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
It all started with cake.
Farhan Akmal, a photojournalist and the man behind the Instagram account @documentingkuala, had been on the ground in Shah Alam on Sunday, helping to coordinate rescues with other volunteers. I was fortunate enough to interview him on his experience and he provided me with pictures he had taken during the whole event.
This is his story:
His wife is a home baker and had orders from customers based in Kuantan. Farhan was on his way to send the cakes to them when he found the Karak highway blocked. Fortunately, the customers were understanding, and Farhan was told to distribute the cakes to the needy.
He decided to venture into Batu Tiga, hoping to give the cakes to anyone who was stranded. Instead, he found himself navigating a nightmare scenario.
Source: Hari Anggara
Shah Alam
While at Batu Tiga, he bumped into some friends who had also volunteered to help rescue flood victims. They were helping to rescue people from the floods there by ferrying people out and bringing supplies in. He joined them in a boat with the cakes, wanting to distribute them to the victims.
He found himself venturing into the water, helping to push small boats around.
The volunteers did all they could for Batu Tiga and since more volunteers were coming in, they decided to look for other places that could use more help.
Source: Farhan Akmal
They found themselves in Section 19 and Section 20 of Shah Alam. He and the other volunteers had to go through the water in order to get to victims. They were among the first group of volunteers to arrive at the location.
Some time in while he was here, Farhan met another person he was acquainted with. This guy was in the area to rescue his girlfriend’s parents who were stuck in Taman Sri Muda. He joined Farhan and the group of volunteers he was working with. At this point, Farhan described to me how the water was at chest level.
They found a family with children sheltering at the DHL depot. They had been fleeing the flood at Taman Sri Muda, which they told Farhan was up to neck level at the time they had left. Luckily for them, the guards at the DHL depot had opened the doors and allowed them in.
By the time they got out, more volunteers were arriving with boats – a precious commodity during the floods.
Farhan regrouped with some other volunteers who had boats at Section 19. They coordinated their efforts with the volunteers who were now going in.
Some of these volunteers with boats were avid kayakers, he told me. They were hobbyists who saw a need and decided to respond to it. There were also some guys there with 4WD vehicles. They were also average citizens who quickly realised that they could help in some way.
Source: Farhan Akmal
“Everything was community based,” he said proudly, but with a little scathing resentment. Where were the authorities at this time? And why were ordinary people the ones to mobilise so quickly?
Many of them were only there by chance.
They headed out to Section 23, and they helped to rescue people from the specialist hospital there. Farhan said that among those who were stranded at the hospital were a mother who had just had a cesarean birth as well as another mother with a 3 day old baby.
Source: Farhan Akmal
They evacuated as many people as they could.
Then they decided to venture into Taman Sri Muda.
Taman Sri Muda
It was around 6PM when they headed towards the area. They couldn’t underestimate the need for caution – they had heard reports that the flood was 1 storey deep inside Taman Sri Muda.
“Section 19 and Section 23 onwards it was all chest level, but past the bridge at Taman Sri Muda, the water was easily above my head,” Farhan told me. He is 6 feet tall, taller than the average Malaysian height. I pictured floodwaters swarming at the levels he was trying to describe, full of debris and waste.
The volunteers were sorely lacking the equipment they needed. The waters were so deep that what they had was simply not advisable. But neither could the volunteers wait. All they had were canoes, which could fit 3 adults max. Motorised boats were what they needed, but they just didn’t have them.
They went in anyway.
Source: Farhan Akmal
Farhan described the situation to me: 1 storey houses were completely submerged and double storey houses were flooded all the way up to the higher floor. People were on their roofs, hoping for rescue, waiting for help.
The Director General of Jabatan Perairan Selangor was there, but he told the volunteers that the victims refused to come out. A friend of his was infuriated by this. “He had a bit of a shouting match with the DG about it,” Farhan said.
There were volunteers there already, shuttling survivors out. Farhan’s group regrouped with them and together they coordinated their actions. They were using rubber dinghies and even small fishing boats that they had to paddle or get into the water to push. Farhan told me about the exhaustion of pushing these boats in the floodwater for hours and hours.
People started arriving with big trucks and pickup trucks. Unfortunately, many of them could do very little because of the height that the flood had reached there. Regardless, Farhan found it heartwarming that so many average Malaysians had turned up just to help – to do anything at all.
“We tried as much as we could,” he said simply.
Source: Farhan Akmal
And then at 11 PM, reports of bodies were starting to be found. “Patah hati tau,” he sighed. “In 9 hours, volunteers managed to rescue 15 families from Taman Sri Muda with whatever we had. If only we had motorised boats, I think about how many more we could have saved.”
At 11 PM, it was 10 hours into his volunteering work for the day. The police and other officers had started arriving by then, but they didn’t seem to be doing much. “If you’re not going in, give us the motorised boats you have and we will go in,” the volunteers were begging them. Farhan said with some derision that the officers were talking about “raising spirits” and whatnot. The volunteers felt fed up with their behaviour as they were the ones who were on the ground responding to the crisis.
It was only by the time that Farhan was leaving, at almost midnight, when the bomba started pouring in. He told me about how the people were angry, shouting at them, “baru sekarang nak sampai!”
“I had never seen so much selflessness before in my life,” Farhan said.
The volunteers had risked life and limb all for the sake of rescuing strangers in need. When the country needed its people, they rallied to the cause. Those who could volunteer their services did so, and those who couldn’t did whatever they could whether it was signalboosting or donating.
Source: Farhan Akmal
Farhan particularly praised Pak Teh, an older man who worked as a driver for the chairman of a bank. “He just messaged me to tell me that he’s putting in 10 days of leave so he can help rescue people.” Pak Teh was in Port Dickson when he heard the news. He took his fishing boat all the way up to Shah Alam so he could join in the efforts to help.
“The most important thing was that these people had no warning,” Farhan told me solemnly. “They were just unprepared to deal with the floods because they didn’t know it was going to happen.” All throughout the work they were doing, people talked about how KKM and MKN were sending messages, but none of them dealt with the national disaster.
“Do you want me to use a pseudonym or your real name?” I asked him at the end of our interview.
“Use my real name,” he said with something like a snarl. “I want people to know what happened. I want them to know I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I’m proud of our fellow Malaysians.”
Currently, Pahang is dealing with the floods. Twitter user @dianadilaa has compiled a thread with information about what is happening there. The Malaysian Director General of Health has also issued a warning for those currently in Perlis, Kedah, Perak and Penang.
Let us be people who can look back on this crisis and say that we did what we could to help, that we did not stand by and do nothing.
For more stories like this, read: Here’s What It’s Really Like Volunteering at a Malaysian PPV Center and “I Watched The Floodwaters Rise” – A Malaysian’s Account Of The Flood In Shah Alam.
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