Hastily built rural roads in Layar are posing dangers to road-users

BY Vernon Aji Kedit,

PKR Betong chairman

There are three major gravel roads in Betong (constituency of N.31 Layar) which were hastily constructed within the last one year to bring development to 22 rural villages.

The gravel roads are Jalan Linsom (approximately 10km), Jalan Spak (approximately 5km) and Jalan Penyelanih Raba (2km).

 Is this a road or what? It seems that this is the road to Rumah Aji, Mupoh Baruh, which branches off from Jalan Layar.

These roads are constructed on soft soil on the sides of hills. The angles of the roads are very steep in some places. The sides of the roads run down very steep slopes which are bare soil without any grass growth or plant roots to hold the earth.

This situation of soft soil on the sides of the slopes of the roads may give rise to erosion. In fact, all three roads are already showing signs of erosion on the sides of the roads.

 

The concern is that in the coming monsoon season months (November to January), extremely heavy rain may cause more erosion and this could lead to dangerous landslides. This puts the 22 villages that travel on these roads in high risk of safety.

Due to soft soil, erosion has started to eat into Jalan Spak

 “Please stop the Hilux and let me walk up the steep hill! I do not want to die on this new but very dangerous road,” said one old female passenger who was travelling with me when we travelled on the Jalan Spak.

Vernon Aji Kedi

 Another illogical road construction is the access road to the new longhouse site of Rumah Anji, Mupoh Baruh, Spak, which is an extremely steep at more than 40 degrees. I sincerely hope that this road is still being constructed and will be levelled to a much safer gradient.

Although I am not a civil engineer, as a concerned representative of the people, I can see with my naked eyes that these irresponsible developments pose a high risk danger to road users, especially when the rainy season comes and soil erosion and landslides occur.

Lives are at risk. I insist the authorities look into this matter NOW and give us an official reply as to the risk factor of these roads.