Comments on: Malaysia > Kelantan > Kuala Krai Train Station

By: naim

naim — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:33:15 +0000

Thanks, Joe, that’s a really cool story. Yes, in the old days, we had public open-air cinemas, and we flocked to these odd sites for our fix of cowboy or Hindi movies, in return for sales talks from the sponsors. I wonder how Krai station was like in the 50s, my earliest memory of it is from the late 60s, as a kid traveling to Lipis to visit grandparents.

By: Joe Greenhalgh

Joe Greenhalgh — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:41:19 +0000

I was with the Manchester Regiment stationed at Kuala Krai in 1953. We used to watch a film shows with the locals in a railway shed our feet between the railway lines.
We used to travel by train to the start of our patrols in the jungle.

Joe Greenhalgh

By: AZIE

AZIE — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 02:54:13 +0000

so suka!!!!! coz ada nostalgia juga di bandar KK tersebut…..very nice story and pics….

By: naim

naim — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 02:46:32 +0000

Howard, you could be right. Because dad told me that in one bad season, we had to evacuate and then we were short of rice. So he swam back to our submerged house (pic above) and dived into the kitchen looking for the stuff. It was in an airtight biscuit can and he got it back to dry land for mom to cook. It was a really bad (= more fun) flood, and ‘67 was The Biggie when our school house was severely submerged (the pic?). The old man is still doing fine, a bit impaired by a stroke 20 yrs ago, but memory still as sharp as razor.

Kelantanese fondly call the ‘67 flood, ‘Bah Merah’ or ‘The Red Flood’. The flood water was reddish due to huge amount of earth being carried downstream the swollen Kelantan river. The only other Bah Merah in living memory was in 1926.

Btw, Howard, that was one wimpy air bah you had there in ‘76, not even knee-level. At the time you posed for that pic, I was most likely in my warm blanket in our house in Ketereh, a much better one, on higher ground too, never got flooded.

By: Howard Y

Howard Y — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:08:43 +0000

Yes, I miss the floods too! (In retrospect…) It’s a great Kelantan tradition, or USED to be, if Naim is correct. “Main Ai” was a local festival in KB, and throughout Kelantan. In the years I was there, we really had no BIG floods, which was a disappointment to a hydrologist like me! The best one was a local flood (see B&W photo above) around my kampong area off Jalan Pengkalan Chepa right near the Thai consulate. (That’s me, 32 years ago!) The year AFTER I left KB, there was a good flood and my friends sent me photos. (See color photo of “main ai” in full swing around the old Pasar Besar in KB.)

One thing about floods when you’re living in a traditional, silver-painted house like I was (B&W photo): the local animals and insects all climb up the stilts and seek refuge in the house! I had small snakes, mice, and centipedes sharing our house for a day or so while the water was right below the floor level!

As far as there being no big floods these days: blame the ENEX of New Zealand consultants! They were conducting the Kelantan River Basin Study while I was there, and they recommended all those dams that now decorate Ulu Kelantan rivers and mitigate those wonderful floods! (I remember the study saying how the floods were the biggest single impediment to the economic development of the state, yet the study also noted an anomaly: the Kelantanese actually seemed to ENJOY the floods! We could have told them that!

Prof. Naim: Wasn’t THE big flood (in recent memory) on Sg. Kelantan the 1967 flood? Could those photos of your Dad be from 1967?

By: naim

naim — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:43:42 +0000

Very true, Howard. The Tangga Bradley forecasting trick has been pretty successful. Whenever the flood inundated the Kelantan delta/plain downstream, there had never been any catastrophic casualties. Deaths were commonly due to mishaps, carelessness and kids falling into drains while ‘playing’ in the ‘air bah’. It was fun, and as kids we looked forward to the monsoon season, believe it or not. The evacuation and the water all around us!

Old pics of 1966

My house, in the compound of a Ketereh primary school my dad worked. We are in the huge Kelantan river delta, and there’s a river to the right, which breaks from the Kelantan river - a distributary. The ‘naked kid’ at the house is yours truly, not yet schooling. The water was still rising then and soon we had to leave. As you see, we had fun!

My dad (far left) and his buddies standing on the main Kota Bharu - Kuala Krai road. Kota Bharu is 20km to the right, Krai 50km the other way. Submerged school buildings at the back. Now no more memorable floods like this, (no) thanks to Howard and his gang. Howard, I miss my floods!

By: Howard Y

Howard Y — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:39:46 +0000

The Kelantan River system catchment is already so large at Kuala Krai, the rate of rise of the flood waters there is actually not very fast. The local residents have plenty of time to evacuate to safer areas. The state’s emergency preparedness plans all include different levels of alert and action at different water levels at the Bradley Stairs. In KB, we at the DID’s hydrology section used to predict when and how long the flood peaks would occur in KB, based on observations at Bradley. In fact, the hydrologic forecasting models in KL were calibrated on observations at Bradley. By inputting the rainfall amounts observed at the telemetric stations in Ulu Kelantan in the various upstream sub-catchments, the model would predict the rise and fall of water levels at Bradley. Then we’d use these forecasts to make predictions for KB. We were right most of the time! And that was 30 years ago! I’d imagine that the modern techniques yield even better and faster results!