A section of the road leading to Sabah deputy chief minister Jeffrey Kitingan’s hilly residence in Inanam near here collapsed after the non-stop downpour, rendering it impassable to any vehicle.
Kitingan, who is also the state agriculture and fisheries minister, was forced to walk more than a kilometre downhill to get to work this morning as a fallen tree also blocked access to the road.
Also in Inanam, rescuers retrieved the body of a man, believed to be that of 37-year-old Juning Maturun, from a car that was swept away by floodwaters in Kampung Kionsom yesterday.
The Myvi was found 200m downriver from where it was first reported to have been washed away at 6pm yesterday.
Rescue operations chief Kenneth Wilfred said the car was found by firemen and villagers in the river at 7.20am today but the authorities only managed to pull it out four hours later.
He said search efforts were still ongoing to look for the driver of the car, identified as Simon Sanga Tupe, 68, who is still missing.
The car, with the two men inside, was captured in a viral video trying to cross a bridge before it was dragged away by the strong currents. It fell into the river and was swiftly washed away.
Meanwhile, patients at the tuberculosis ward at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital I here were relocated to safer grounds after a hill just next to the ward collapsed at 7pm yesterday.
Sabah community development and people’s well-being minister Shahelmey Yahya, who visited the site today, said no one was injured in the incident but the patients and medical staff were transferred to another area as a safety precaution.
He said efforts are under way to stabilise the soil structure before further repair work can be carried out at the affected slope.
In another incident at Kampung Kopungit, 500m away, a storage facility used by the health ministry to keep medicines also collapsed after the hill it was located on gave way in a landslip last night.
Three cars and a motorcycle belonging to health ministry personnel were also buried in debris following the incident at 7.30pm.
According to a fire department spokesman, no one was hurt but the village chief had been advised to evacuate the residents in the area for their safety.
The spokesman said the fire department was also setting up a “trapping fence” on a section of the hill where a large water tank is located, just above where the landslip occurred earlier.