Long Aton residents urgently seek repairs for vital timber bridge
Screengrab from video shows the sorry state of the broken bridge leading to Long Aton in Ulu Tinjar, Baram.
MIRI (May 7): Residents are calling on the authorities to urgently repair a vital timber bridge on the road to Long Aton settlement in Ulu Tinjar, which collapsed over a week ago.
The collapse has jeopardised the movement of people and goods, with those affected including students and teachers at SK Long Aton and students studying at SMK Tinjar.
The Kenyah settlement is located 210km from here.
'Nearly 300 people, including the villagers from the 48-door settlement are affected, and the broken bridge is now passable only by foot or motorcycle but impassable to four-wheel drive vehicles,' villager Gilbert Magok Lawrence told The Borneo Post.
'The condition of this bridge has worsened since February this year with erosion setting in. Now vehicles cannot pass through the road because the wooden logs under the bridge are also broken and have rotted away.'
The school and village chiefs have raised the issue to the authorities, including Telang Usan assemblyman Datuk Dennis Ngau, who has pressed for expedited repairs.
The broken bridge crosses Yang Paceik river, near Apau Nyaring village.
Earlier this month, Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said the state government is aware of the infrastructure issues in Ulu Baram and acknowledged that the problems in the constituency are indeed significant.
He will present a working paper outlining the procedures for maintaining these areas, including the many ageing and dilapidated bridges, during the next Cabinet meeting.
Uggah has suggested that former logging roads in Ulu Baram that are currently classified as village roads should be upgraded to state roads to allow for higher maintenance funding under the Malaysian Road Records Information System. lead Long Aton timber bridge Ulu Tinjar
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