KUCHING: The water bombing operation today will depend on yesterday’s impact on the hazy skies engulfing Sarawak.
Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) director-general Admiral (Maritime) Datuk Mohd Zubil Mat Som (pic) said this at a press conference at the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) base here.
“The operation today will depend on the situation…if there is rain during the night that can help put out the fires completely,” he said.
Adm Zubil then briefed the press on the first phase of the water bombing operation that took place in Miri from Aug 15 to 22 that lasted eight days and had an 80 per cent success rate.
“The Bombardier CL-415 aircraft flew for 36 hours, costing about RM1.6 million (equivalent to RM200,000 per hour), involving a total of 1,600 tonnes of water and a total of 267 drops (water bombings) were made.
“Last Sunday, we carried out the water bombing operation in Sector A in Sri Aman…flew for 6.9 hours and managed to put out 95 per cent of the fires,” he elaborated.
Adm Zuhil further informed that yesterday’s operation, in which the Bombardier flew from 8.20am to 11.50am (3.3 hours), focused on Sector C, about 31km from Sri Aman.
The operation yesterday was 80 per cent effective, involving a total of 108,000 litres of water.
The two-day operation from Sept 22 to 23 made a total of 35 drops (18 on Sunday, 17 on Monday) involving 211,600 tonnes of water.
Adm Zuhil explained that the Bombardier collected water from Batang Lupar in Sri Aman — the aircraft only had 12 seconds to scoop the water from the river for 200m and then needed about 1.5km to take off due to the weight.
“The cost of the operation depends on the flight duration…because the aircraft is piloted by two sets of pilots and their flying hours are limited to four hours each — in the morning and in the afternoon,” he explained.
He was also confident that the Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) would put out small fires today as the current areas burning at Kampung STC were down to 1.5 acres.
Also present at the press conference were Sarawak Bomba fire and rescue operations assistant director Tiong Ling Hii and Sarawak MMEA director First Adm (Maritime) Robert Teh Geok Chuan.
