KUCHING: A Mountain and Cave Search and Rescue (MOCSAR) team is in the pipeline.
Fire and Rescue Department state director Khirudin Drahman said this at a press conference yesterday after an accreditation ceremony of the Airport Fire and Rescue Services (AFRS) at the department’s headquarters at Jalan Setia Raja.
Khirudin said the idea to form the team came up in the wake of a recent tragedy in Mulu National Park where a Dutch tourist and a local tour guide died in a flash flood.
He agreed with Tourism, Arts Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah’s opinion that rescue teams ought to be established in places that attract many tourists.
Abdul Karim has said that certain tourist spots in Sarawak were potentially dangerous but some foreign nature lovers were willing to spend time and money to visit them, so their safety is a priority.
“Hence, we have discussed the establishment of a MOCSAR team for Mulu. This would be the first such team which hopefully would become operational soon,” he said.
Khirudin hoped that when the team has been formed, the members would warn tourists quickly when there is an emergency or when there is potential danger.
“For me, I prefer preventive programmes rather than reactive ones. The MOCSAR team will have the authority to decide whether it is safe for tourists to go on a tour or have them leave an area under certain circumstances,” he said.
Those types of decisions at the moment are made by tour guides on the spot.
The MOCSAR team will have lessons on basic use of ropes, basic rescue equipment, proper ways to transport an injured person and other much needed bush craft skills.
When asked whether there are any special cave diving teams in the plan, Khirudin explained that there are but diving in caves requires special equipment as different caves have different sizes, shapes and topography.
“The chances of using cave diving equipment are quite remote, but if they arise, we’ll need them,” he said.
He then said that all station chiefs have been asked to do research on safety pertaining to rivers inside caves such as those in Bau. As such, during the holiday seasons, warning signs will be put up with the help of local authorities.
“At the moment the problem is that when we have marked a place as dangerous, people still venture forward, but to a different place.
“Taking the Gunung Santubong hiking trail as an example, there is a well-trodden, safe trail but some hikers don’t use them,” he said.
