My Longkang

Pic courtesy of www.gps.caltech.edu.com

In the rural areas where there is no running water, it is common for the people to bathe in the river. I still remember many a time when I go travelling upriver, I would go to the river, clad in a towel carrying a pail, soap and toothbrush. Many Sarawakians in the rural areas will remember this scenario. The river is everything. Transportation, source of irrigation, source of water, place of recreation. Some stretches of the river banks are even used as a beach.

So, news like a crocodile attack is a very personal thing to many Sarawakians. Two species found in Sarawak out of the 22 worldwide — Crocodylus porosus, the estuarine crocodile which is commonly known as “buaya katak” and Tomistoma schlegelii — are protected under the Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998.
Crocodiles however share the same environment as the human beings. Unlike dogs, cats or even wild boar, a human is powerless against a crocodile. A mature crocodile is a huge powerful being and some are as big as a small boat. Its jaws are frightening.

In Bakong on Wednesday incident at Sungai Kulat in Bakong, Lower Baram, timber scaler Jamhari Hamdan, 24, of Kampung Kuala, Oya, had just finished bathing in the river and was about to leave at 6.30 pm when a crocodile grabbed his legs and dragged him under water. This is a common strategy of crocodiles, to drown a victim before killing it. A search and rescue operation in two boats and a tugboat was launched but they were unsuccessful.A similar incident happened in May 2005.

Unconfirmed reports say a big crocodile with an object, which looked like a human arm in its mouth, was spotted upriver at midnight by the timber camp’s search party assisted by spotlight on the tugboat.

In 2001, a 10 year-old boy was killed in a crocodile attack in Niah River and the reptile killed was later found to be about 15 feet, and the different parts of the victim’s limb were recovered from the belly after it was opened up by the angry father.

A few days ago a villager in Debak, Betong was maimed while paddling his boat at Sungai Rimbas.The victim who was bitten at the hip, however, survived to tell the story.