BALING: Ahmad Simi Abdul Rauf, 61, from Kampung Batu 8 in Tanjung Pari, has been having sleepless nights for the past two weeks.
Having been left paralysed on the right side of his body due to a stroke four years ago, the retired teacher is worried sick over the risk of more severe floods hitting his home.
This was after the adjacent Kampung Teluk Rambong was ravaged by the worst flooding at the end of last month, tearing down three steel bridges and several houses.
Simi's family's safety is not his only concern. His other headache is the damage done by the mud flow to his oil palm smallholding, which is now covered up to one metre deep with mud and stones washed down by the floodwaters.
"I had built a retaining wall, but it collapsed during the massive floods on Oct 1. On Saturday, there was another wave of floods, which left my plantation site filled with debris of mud and stones.
"It will be a daunting task to clean up the mess, and it will be costly, too," he said when met at his home.
Simi said the thick mud would block fertiliser from fully reaching the roots of 80 oil palm trees that have been producing yield over the past several years.
"The thick mud will make the fertilisation harder. There is no assurance that the fertiliser will reach the tree's roots. Furthermore, the floods have created several streams on the site during heavy rainfall.
"It will be costly to clean up the mess. We have spent RM25,000 on building the retaining wall, RM3,000 to clean the river stream and another RM1,000 to irrigate the site. It will be hard to spend that same amount again now," he said.
His wife, Norazura Mansor, 54, said they were worried that the situation may affect the oil palm yield.
"We just carried out the fertilisation in August, but we are now worried that the damage by the floods may affect the yield."
It was reported that Kampung Teluk Rambong was hit by the first debris surge and floods on Sept 30, forcing several families to be evacuated to a nearby temporary flood relief centre.