By Jaythaleela K
MIRI, Jan 21: A primary school girl was rushed to Miri Hospital yesterday when a section of her school’s first-floor corridor suddenly broke and collapsed, causing her to fall 10 feet to the ground.
The incident was reported to have occurred at Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Long Bemang, Sungai Apoh in Baram around 10am yesterday.
The school authorities immediately rushed the victim, aged nine, to Miri Hospital.
The victim’s mother added that the girl did not suffer any life-threatening injuries and that the victim had been discharged from Miri Hospital.
Meanwhile, according to Telang Usan assemblyman Dennis Ngau when contacted today, he has immediately instructed the Parents Teacher Association (PTA) and the school to inspect the school’s facilities and infrastructures for repair works.
“I’ve told them to use the allocation worth RM10,000 from my Minor Rural Project (MRP), which has been approved earlier this month to carry out any repair works on the school’s facilities that are found to be in dilapidated conditions to prevent the same thing happen again,” he said.
He also brushed off baseless criticisms made by netizens who accused the government of not doing anything to repair the school’s dilapidated facilities that led to yesterday’s incident.
“In 2019, the government has set aside a huge allocation to help repair this school. As a result, we have carried out repair works on dilapidated infrastructures and repainted the school’s building,” he pointed out.
“It was an unexpected incident. Please do not simply comment on social media without knowing the facts and blaming the government to score political mileage. Additionally, some of these negative comments could hurt the feelings of the victim’s parents,” Dennis explained.
SK Long Bemang is among the four primary schools within the Telang Usan constituency that are frequently hit by floods due to their locations situated in low-lying areas. The other three schools are SK Long Sobeng, SK Long Loyang, and SK Long Luteng.
“We have proposed that these schools need to be relocated to higher grounds,” Dennis said.
In 2018, the State government announced that it would spend RM81.7 million to fix dilapidated schools in Sarawak. — DayakDaily
