TEMERLOH: Convenience stores, clinics, financial institutions and fast food outlets are all submerged as Mentakab town near here is hit by the worst flooding in decades.
The floods since Sunday have crippled the entire town centre and all main roads heading to the town are completely inundated by floodwaters.
The floods have forced Tenaga Nasional Bhd to cut off the power supply in some areas to avoid any mishap leaving residents without electricity.
Mentakab assemblyman Woo Chee Wan described the floods as similar to the "1971 disaster" and even the incident early this year was not as bad as the current situation.
"It is just like the one in 1971 and it is worse than the one in 2014 or in January this year. Mentakab town is only accessible by boat and in some sections of the town, there are strong currents....almost 90 percent of the town is submerged.
"Some residents are still trapped at their flood-hit homes and my service centre has made arrangements to move them to the nearest relief centres. The sun is out but the flood water is showing little improvement," he said when contacted.
Meanwhile, Woo said he was informed that food items including bread and canned food were sold out in most areas and shelves were left empty.
"People living in high areas cannot go out to town so they totally rely on the grocery stores near their homes to buy the essentials. Shop owners cannot replenish the food items as lorries cannot enter the town to supply the goods.....even the hypermarkets in town are inundated.
"Since Sunday, my service centre has been packing and delivering food items to the evacuation centres and we will continue until the floods subsides. Once the situation improves, we will begin the cleaning process," he said.
Meanwhile, resident P. Kalaiarasan said the flood water continued to rise even after the rain had stopped forcing many people to vacate their homes fearing that the situation might worsen.
"Not only housing settlements but the entire town is under water. I am not sure how these shop operators are going to clean and resume their businesses.....there is so much to be done," he said.
The floods in Mentakab were triggered by water flowing down from rivers upstream towards Sungai Semantan and to date had forced more than 5,000 people to be evacuated.