The Star Online: Metro: South & East
The Star Online: Metro: South & East |
| Posted: 07 Jun 2013 01:59 AM PDT PULAU TIOMAN: Divers are giving continuous support to coral-adopting activities in Tioman Island through coral cleaning programme. About 20 dive masters, newly licenced divers from media, divers from Department of Marine Park and Tourism Pahang have taken their time diving into a 16m deep open sea off Damai Beach Resort in Kampung Genting. A time frame of an hour was given to them in the cleaning programme. Although, it was insufficient, they continued later in the following diving session. According to coordinator Zulkifli Abdul Latiff, the programme could also be considered maintenance works while at the same time, monitoring the corals. Divers have earlier conducted adopting-a-coral programme which was held last year in the Starts-In-Tioman diving lessons. Zulkifli said most corals transplanted in the pots were healthy as its size has grown tremendously, thus proving that the environment was suitable for the corals to survive. He said popular underwater species like "garoupa" (ikan kerapu) and lionfish were seen visiting the transplanted corals. "Most of the transplanted corals in the nursery were in good, intact, healthy and are growing. "The divers have taken a lot of effort to volunteer in diving from time to time, to check on the environment where rubbish were also collected and brought up to be thrown away," Zulkifli said. He said the volunteers are commited to ensure the coral nursery received less threats. In the adopting corals programme last year, some 100 pieces of broken corals were transplanted in the pots which were later tranferred to the sea basin with a nursery concept. Each pot consists of a mixture of clay, sodium, water, and other materials to facilitate the corals' healthly growth. The programme has been under the supervision of the Department of Marine Park Malaysia where donor coral fragments were selected and harvested from healthy corals that have broken off. Zulkifli said the corals would get stressed when exposed to changes in sea conditions such as temperature, light or nutrients and expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues causing them to turn white. "In a move to protect, preserve and conserve the corals, a resort operator Villagers Travel and Tours Sdn Bhd, Tourism Ministry's Pahang Office, Tioman Development Authority and Tioman Marine Park have taken the efforts to conserve the corals as conducted in this programme," he said. |
| Posted: 07 Jun 2013 02:00 AM PDT KOTA KINABALU: More villagers, who have to rely on collecting rain water and depending on wells, now have clean water supply, thanks to the "Clean Water for Communities" project by Raleigh Borneo and Coca-Cola. After seven years of helping local communities, Raleigh Borneo, a youth development charity body continues to do what they do best – initiating community projects which benefits villagers in terms of getting water supply and better education among others. The latest beneficiary through the "Clean Water for Communities" project were villages from Sabah's west coast Pitas district — Kampung Bulud Batu, Kampung Boribi and Kampung Pinapak — comprising 32 homes and more than 300 people. A villager from Kg Bulud Batu known as Aunty Rodiah said she was extremely happy when she saw clean water coming from her tap as it was not a thing they got the chance to enjoy before this. "Words cannot express my feelings today when we turned on the tap and saw clean water gushing out of the gravity feed system built by the Raleigh team," said the mother of two, who has been making weekly trips by car to the village's nearest water source to collect water and fill up large plastic containers for the week's use. Most of the villagers from these three villages depended heavily on well and rainwater, and when these ran dry, they had to trek or drive to an alternative water source further away to haul water back. The "Clean Water for Communities" project began in 2006 in Kampung Paus, a little village situated deep inland in the Ranau distric, where its villagers had to trek for miles each day to get water supply from a river until the day a group of youth volunteers came in to construct a water gravity feed system which channeled water directly to the village. To date, the Coca-Cola funded project has brought a new lease of life to about 15,000 people as they can now enjoy the basic necessity of having clean water piped into their homes or village for daily use. The water gravity project had received support from the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment Sabah who applauded the Raleigh volunteers aged between 17 and 25 for their positive and caring spirit for the local community. The project sees Raleigh volunteers building or repairing gravity water feed systems in the remote villages deep in the interior of Sabah where basic amenities such as power and water supply are not easily available. The possibility of a lack of water supply in Malaysia's tropical weather with its heavy rainfalls may seem ironic but unfortunately not everyone in the country has access to clean, potable water. Living with a basic roof over their heads, the volunteers work with the local community to identify a nearby clean water source, where a dam is built and water piped into the village – be it the homes or communitycentres – which saves women and children, who traditionally bear the burden of carrying water, a long arduous trek to the water source. |
| Posted: 07 Jun 2013 02:00 AM PDT TEMERLOH: More than a dozen Indonesian workers lost most of their belongings after a morning fire razed their quarters to the ground recently. The fire which started at about 10.30am was believed to have been caused by an act of negligence. Initial investigations revealed that one of the workers could have forgotten to switch off the gas stove after cooking. At the height of the fire, several explosions from a gas cylinder were heard from afar. Due to the wooden structure of the quarters, the fire spread very fast before the workers could rush back to salvage their personal belongings. Two fire engines from the Mentakab fire station with eight firemen took about half an hour to put out the fire. No one was injured as all the workers had left for work at a nearby housing project during the incident. Firemen also faced some difficulties in putting out the fire promptly due to low water pressure and lack of proper fire hydrants. Several cables supplying electricity to a nearby housing settlement were also slightly damaged during the fire. Fire and Rescue Department public relations officer Anuar Hassan said the cause and total losses were still under investigations. |
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