When it rains

It pours!

It has been raining abnormally heavy this week.Especially on Wednesday night.So much so that in the Brunei-Muara district (where the capital is) there was flashfloods and the water was 3metres high that caused the tunnel to Bandar from the Beribi-Gadong-Kiulap roundabout (the biggest and busiest roundabout in Brunei) unuseable.

Thus on Thursday,the traffic was really2 terribly packed,jammed,exasperatingly close-quarters bumper-to-bumper almost-impossible to navigate! I should know since I was one of the drivers caught in the bottleneck on the way to work Thursday morning. To make matters worse,the flood waters submerged the power stations and caused some traffic lights to shut down which caused more roads to be closed by the police to make the roads more efficient.The power cut-off also affected some schools,ATMs,shops and housing areas.Including mine.Fortunately,I still had water supply but some were’nt as lucky.

Some houses were also flooded knee-high and above (including a few of my colleagues and Boss!) while landslides blocked roads and collapsed houses.At the least,2 persons died-1 drowned in the strong current of flood waters and 1 when the landslide collapsed the house.

And beginning Thursday night until 30th,the seas have an unusually high tide and low lying areas near the coast are to be extra alert.And my Bro just informed me yesterday that there will be an eclipse on the 26th.

Never have I ever recalled such sudden,unexpected natural occurences of these magnitudes happening in Brunei before (thus the lack of ‘natural disaster backup plan’ in place to deal with them)..It really makes us realise that Mother Nature is trying to tell us something-that as humans,caretakers of our planet Earth,we might not have done our job really well.Do we ever learn?Or is it already too late?

Just think about it.

P.S. I just found out that there is a landslide between Bintulu and Sibu that’s disrupting the road.Hopefully,this will be cleared and no other unwanted instances should happen when the family makes the journey to Sibu next week.Amen!