MUAR – A rabbit farmer in Kampung Liang Batu, Lenga here shared his anxious moments when a cage that housed more than 100 rabbits behind his house was flooded following the overflow of the Muar River, last Sunday (Jan 2).
However, the quick action of Shahrizan Mansor, 40, and his wife Norhafizah Hashim, 37, managed to save all the rabbits by moving them to his uncle’s house in Felda Batu 27, here using a three-tonne lorry at about 8pm.
“Since Dec 31, friends in Segamat told me that the water of Sungai Muar was at a dangerous level, even the fire brigade and the Malaysian Civil Defence Force had issued warnings when they surveyed this area because my house is about 800 metres from Muar River.
“On Jan 2, the water of Sungai Muar rose in the yard, fortunately, all the rabbits were safe otherwise, maybe I will suffer a loss of between RM20,000 to RM30,000 in the blink of an eye,” he said when met by Bernama at his residence, here today.
Shahrizan said he had been rearing the rabbits, which consisted of various breeds such as Holland Lop, Mix Teddy Bear, New Zealand White, Chinchilla and Angora, since the beginning of last year and some of the furry animals even cost thousands of ringgit each.
The father of two said the Muar River had been deepened before and the mitigation must have prevented the houses of the villagers from being flooded, but he did not expect the river water this time to be so high that it overflowed into the yard up to knee level.
According to Norhafizah, the same thing happened in 2011 when the water level rose rapidly to the roof level, damaging various crops around her house.
“Thankfully this time it did not happen like 10 years ago, it was a relief for me to be (forewarned and) able to save all the rabbits located on a 0.809 hectare site,” she said, adding that the distance from his house to Felda Batu 27 is about 13 kilometres.
A survey by Bernama in Kampung Liang Batu today found that the flood water had begun to recede, but some houses and leisure centres in the village were still inundated despite the sunny weather.
So far, three Muar River stations are at danger level, namely at Kampung Olak Sepam; Liang Batu and in Bukit Kepong.
Muar recorded the second highest number of flood victims in Johor after Segamat with 1,085 evacuees from 330 families still housed at 10 temporary evacuation centres in the district as of 4 pm today.
