The Library Media — National & World · World Desk
By Maya Wilson
A Deepavali picnic in Malaysia’s Selangor state has ended in tragedy after flash floods swept through the area, leaving one person dead and seven others missing, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP). The incident unfolded as flooding and severe weather prompted evacuations in Selangor and neighbouring Perak.
SCMP reported that the victim was a local man and that the seven missing people were foreigners. Local officials told the newspaper that the man’s body was found at about 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday near a bridge approximately 2.7 kilometres from the Sungai Pertak picnic site.
The man was identified by local officials as V. Vijayan, SCMP reported. He was believed to have gathered with a group at the site a day earlier to celebrate Deepavali, also known as Diwali. The newspaper said the picnic was caught up in flash flooding in the area.
The fate of the seven missing people had not been established in SCMP’s report. The outlet did not report that they had been found, and their status remained unknown in the available account. The confirmed toll for the picnic incident is therefore one person dead and seven missing.
SCMP reported that flooding prompted authorities to evacuate hundreds of people from areas in Selangor and Perak as the monsoon season strengthened. The newspaper also reported a wider increase in thunderstorms across Malaysia associated with shifting monsoon winds.
Separately, Bernama reported on Tuesday that 422 people from 119 families remained at temporary relief centres in Selangor and Perak. Malay Mail, carrying Bernama’s reporting, published the same overall figure.
Bernama’s report separates the evacuees into categories: flood evacuees in Perak, people affected by storms in Selangor, and a group displaced by a landslide in Gombak on October 29. However, the category figures published alongside the overall total do not reconcile with it. Bernama gives 410 flood evacuees from 114 families in Perak, as well as 12 storm-affected people from three families and 20 people from five families displaced by the earlier landslide in Selangor. Those components add up to 442 people from 122 families, rather than the stated total of 422 people from 119 families.
The discrepancy appears in Bernama’s published figures. The overall figure of 422 people from 119 families is retained here as the outlet’s reported headline total, but the conflicting category numbers should not be combined or presented as a reconciled breakdown.
The relief-centre figures also describe several different emergencies and should not be read as a count of people affected by the Sungai Pertak picnic incident.
The available reports do not establish the precise cause of the sudden flooding beyond the reported severe weather and rainfall context. They also do not establish what happened to the seven missing people after the picnic. Their whereabouts and condition remain unknown.
For now, the confirmed toll from the Deepavali gathering is one dead and seven missing, while Bernama reports hundreds of people remaining at relief centres across Selangor and Perak amid flooding, storms and the effects of an earlier landslide.
About the author: Maya Wilson is the intelligence lead of The Library and lead of the World desk at The Library Media.