It’s the time of the year again, where people around the world and the nation celebrates Christmas and getting ready for the new year.

But in this part of the world, people are busy clearing water out of their living rooms and building blockades to prevent flood water from spilling into their premises.

Welcome to Sibu, folks!

Well, this might not be the Great Flood of Sibu, where the town had seen worse floods in the 80′s and another one around 1999. But I’m documenting this as a reference point for more, inevitable, future floods, be it greater or not.

This is one of the worst hit areas in Sibu town. The Merlin region. Even if it’s not the flood season, heavy, overnight downpour would also turn this area into virtually a lake. Residence in this area had, over the years, got used to this customary flood season. It comes every year during the Christmas, and then the Chinese New Year.

Belian is a species of valuable timber valued at about RM4000/ton. FYI, most of Sibu’s road are named after timber species for it’s the main economy driver of the town. But as lavish as the road’s name, it’s always flood-prone.

This road, like many in Sibu, is dangerously designed and built with no proper barrier from the drain. The drain is wide and deep enough to be called a stream. This is a 4-way junction where cars, motorbikes, and cyclists goes vice versa everyday. The road is so narrow that if two 4×4 pick-ups is going head-to-head directions, they have to slow down and make sure they do not scratch each other, while at the same time, watch their distance from the longkang (drain).

You won’t see the road, it’s straight down the longkang from the passenger’s side. Sometimes, if you met an oncoming vehicle driven by a beginner, they will tend to lean towards your lane. It doesn’t matter if they crash into you or not, as long as they don’t end up in the longkang, it’s fine. End up, the one who avoided the beginner’s car, crashed into the longkang. Shit like this happens here.

JKR: “Who said we didn’t put barriers?”

They use Belian square logs as a barrier to the drain. How effective is it preventing vehicles from going into the drain? For more information, please call JKR Sibu. Try driving through that road at night, where the road lacks proper illumination. If you’re not a Siburian, I suggest you don’t try this. Worse case…

You can park your Caldina by the roadside and walk. Because you won’t want the Caldina to end up in the drain, or get the engine wet in the floods. Please stay dry.

Football field-sized swimming pool. In the past, kids used to like the floods as they can come out and swim in the drain. Nowadays, they stay in front of the PC reading blogs like this.

The Sibu town was founded and built on a swampy land. Most of the land in Sibu are still sinking, where the lucky houses get away with sinking a couple of inches in a decade, while the unlucky ones, ends up with almost half of their house in the drain.

Many houses in this area were abandoned. They were deemed to be in critical condition and unsafe to reside.

While for some of them who can’t afford a new house, lives on in those critical houses. Not without fear, as described by one of the resident. “We sleep in fear, but as time passed, we’re immune to the situation”. Who knows how long will the premise hold?

Yet another abandoned house. When night falls, this area looks more like a haunted town than a neighborhood.

Took a step wrong and you could end up in the drain. It makes no difference anymore now, the road is the drain, the drain is the road.

Motorcycles are parked on higher grounds to prevent them from being damaged by the flood. A black dog guards over them.

Someone should take responsibility for this. The timber tycoons, the local authority, the government, whoever promised a few days ago, that there will be no floods. The mass deforestation had worsen the soil erosion and gradual soil filling causes the river bed to rise. With the constant sinking ground of Sibu and the rising water level…

50 years later, your kids might be riding on boats to schools. No kidding.