Tag: Mount Kinabalu

Sabah Quake: Father Of British Nudist Pleads For Mercy

PETALING JAYA: The father of a British woman arrested in Sabah for posing nude on top of Mount Kinabalu has pleaded for mercy for his daughter, 24-year old Eleanor Hawkins.

“She’s pretty scared and quite upset,” said Timothy Hawkins, who was quoted by the British newspaper The Telegraph on Thursday.

Hawkins, who owns a mechanical engineering business in the village of Draycott in Derbyshire told The Telegraph: “We really hope they don’t try to make an example of her.”

It was reported that Eleanor was touring Southeast Asia when she was arrested at Tawau airport as she was about to catch a flight to Kuala Lumpur as part of an extended tour of Southeast Asia following her graduation from the University of Southampton with a Masters degree in aeronautical engineering.

The tour, which began in January saw Eleanor traveling alone from Thailand to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam before arriving in Malaysia. She was planning to continue from Malaysia to Singapore, Indonesia and Hong Kong.

She had reportedly expressed her love for Southeast Asia and Malaysia in particular, saying that Malaysia has ” proper palm trees and decent sunsets. It’s pretty damn amazing.”

On May 30, a group of tourists allegedly stripped naked and indiscriminately urinated atop Kinabalu. They posed for pictures that went viral after they were posted on social media.

Their antics angered Sabah’s Kadazandusun tribe who revere the mountain and view them as an insult and desecration of a sacred place.

On Wednesday, two of the four tourists remanded by police for desecrating Mount Kinabalu confessed to going naked while on the mountain. The four were remanded the same day while police hunt for six other tourists who allegedly committed the offence together.

The four were Eleanor, a 23-year-old male and his 22-year-old sister, from Canada; and a 23-year-old Dutchman.

They were remanded until June 13 for investigations under Section 294(a) of the Penal Code for committing obscene acts in a public place. They have yet to be charged in court.

If convicted, they face a maximum three-month jail term or a fine, or both.

Police believe the other six tourists, mostly Europeans, were still in the state.

On June 5, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck the mountain and 18 people lost their lives.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reported that Timothy had spoken to Eleanor on Wednesday morning, saying that it was good to speak to her.

Timothy added that Eleanor was relieved to be in the hands of the Malaysian authorities after seeing the anger the stunt had created among Malaysians.

“She’s kind of relieved because she saw it coming. It’s good to know where she is. It is not the kind of situation you envisage when your daughter goes travelling. I have faith in their judicial system,” he said.

Source: www.thestar.com.my

June 11, 2015
Mount Kinabalu Nudists Charged In Sabah Court
Four Western tourists accused of being part of a group who posed nude at the top of Malaysia’s Mount Kinabalu have appeared in court in Sabah state.

Authorities said the two Canadians, a Briton and a Dutchman may be charged with causing public nuisance.

Mt Kinabalu was hit by a magnitude 6.0 earthquake last Friday which left 18 people dead, including children.

A senior minister last week said the tourists had angered the spirits of the mountain, which is considered sacred.

Six people sought

Ranau district police chief Mohd Farhan Lee Abdullah confirmed to the BBC that the authorities had arrested a British woman at Tawau airport in Sabah on Tuesday.

The two Canadians, who are siblings, and the Dutchman turned themselves in to police on the same day.

Their lawyer, Ronny Cham, told the BBC’s Jennifer Pak that he had requested the four be held apart from other detainees in order to ensure their safety.

A candle-lit vigil was held on Tuesday for the victims of the Mount Kinabalu earthquake

The group appeared in court on Wednesday to have their remand extended, according to Malaysian newspaper The Star. They will now be held until Saturday while police continue their investigation.

Jalaluddin Abdul Rahman, Sabah’s police commissioner, was quoted by AFP news agency as saying that the authorities may charge them with causing a public nuisance.

He said they were still looking for six other tourists from the same group “and we will catch them”.

The father of the British tourist who has been arrested, Eleanor Hawkins from the English city of Derby, said he was extremely worried about her. “I have got every faith in [Malaysia’s] judicial system. I just hope they don’t make an example of them,” Tim Hawkins told the Guardian newspaper.

‘Disrespect’

The group of 10 foreigners had allegedly stripped naked and posed for pictures on 30 May. They were also said to have urinated on the mountain.

The Muslim-majority country is socially conservative, and Mount Kinabalu is also considered sacred by Sabah’s Kadazan Dusun tribe.

Pictures posted on social media angered many in Malaysia, but public sentiment intensified after the quake.

Why is Kinabalu sacred?
- Sabah’s Kadazan Dusun tribe believe the mountain houses the spirits of their dead ancestors.
- The name Kinabalu is derived from the tribe’s phrase “Aki Nabalu”, which means resting place of the dead.
- Climbers are told by guides, many of whom are Kadazan Dusun, to treat the mountain with respect and to refrain from shouting, screaming or cursing at it.
- Every December the tribe conducts a ritual called the Monolob to appease the spirits and allow climbers to continue visiting the mountain.
- A priestess, called a Bobolian, makes an offering of seven white chickens accompanied by seven chicken eggs, betel nuts, tobacco, limestone powder, and betel plant leaves. The Bobolian leads a chant and the chickens are then slaughtered, cooked, and given to the ceremony participants.
- In the past, this ceremony was conducted before every ascent, and climbers used the cooked meat as rations for their journey.
Last weekend, Sabah’s deputy chief minister, Joseph Pairin Kitingan, had linked the earthquake to the tourists’ act. He said the tragedy was a “confirmation” that they had showed “disrespect” to the mountain.

Sabah’s tourism minister, Masidi Manjun, said later that this idea was “misconstrued”, but added that the tourists’ actions “were against the people of the largest tribe in Sabah”.

Some officials have demanded that the foreigners be tried in a native court for flouting local customs.

Mr Masidi said on Wednesday that searchers had found the bodies of the last two missing people.

Mourners left tributes to primary school victims in Singapore over the weekend

Singapore’s education ministry identified the two bodies as pupil Navdeep Singh Jaryal Raj Kumar and teacher Mohammad Ghazi Bin Mohamed.

They were part of a group from Tanjong Katong Primary School who were climbing the mountain with guides when the earthquake struck. Seven pupils, two teachers and a guide were killed.

Others killed included Malaysians and citizens from China, Japan and the Philippines.

Source: www.bbc.com
June 11, 2015
Sabah Quake: More Than $38,000 Raised For Family Of Late Tanjong Katong Primary Teacher

A website set up on Wednesday (June 10) by friends of the late Tanjong Katong Primary School (TKPS) teacher Mohammad Ghazi Mohamed, has raised more than $38,000 by Thursday afternoon.

All proceeds from the online “Remembering Ghazi” page will go to Mr Ghazi’s wife, who is also a teacher, and their three children, with the youngest being just a year old.

However, the organisers have decided to cease the campaign on Thursday, 3.30pm, so that they can keep the donations “within a manageable amount”.

The administrative aspects of the fundraiser will be managed by a colleague of Mr Ghazi’s wife, Mr Chua Wee Nam, who is the Head of Department for Discipline at East View Secondary School.

The group also hopes “to direct this positive energy to a formal charity organisation” to collect donations for others affected by the Mount Kinabalu tragedy.

They also requested the public to respect the privacy of the family.

The campaign was started by a group of about 20 hockey and football players who knew Mr Ghazi, 35, through school, university or clubs, said one of the campaign organisers, Mr Hoirul Hafiidz.

The group had kept each other updated via a mobile group chat when news broke that Mr Ghazi, who was leading pupils up Mount Kinabalu when the 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck, was missing.

When Mr Ghazi’s body was identified on Wednesday through fingerprinting and personal belongings, they “decided to do something to help instead of just talking about it”, Mr Hoirul said.

Mr Ghazi was remembered by friends, former students and colleagues on Wednesday at the TKPS tribute centre.

He was an avid hockey player who coached the TKPS hockey team, influencing at least one student to take up the sport and later become a national player.

The June 5 earthquake that struck Sabah claimed the lives of 10 people from Singapore – seven pupils and two teachers from TKPS, and the adventure guide who accompanied them on their learning journey to Mount Kinabalu.

Education Minister Heng Swee Keat expressed his condolences in a Facebook post on Wednesday, and said that the opening hours of the tribute site at TKPS will be extended by two hours to 9pm. Thursday (June 11) is the last day for members of the public to pay their respects to the victims of the earthquake.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

June 11, 2015
School Heads: Rigourous Risk Assessments Done Before Overseas Expeditions

Whether it is kayaking or trekking, students at Raffles Institution have a variety of choices when it comes to leadership courses. But before embarking on any expedition, the school will conduct a rigorous risk management assessment.

Said Head of Department at the Raffles Institute for Experential Learning Kuak Nam Jin: “MOE (Ministry of Education) has a very well-established risk management matrix. We follow that very closely. We go on recce trips to look at the place. The staff would often embark on the entire route of the destination to find out how vigorous or intense it is. We have to find out in history whether other schools have used it before, what is the feedback?”

Once a place has been chosen, training to prepare the students physically for the trip begins, according to Mr Kuak: “We would prepare our students physically for the trip which often involves general physical conditioning pretty much like PE conditioning. And then there’s also specific training.

“For instance if you are climbing a mountain, then you really need to get students to be climbing the stairs, carrying their backpack so that they develop the right type of muscles in the physical conditions to allow them to perform on the mountain.”

The safety of such expeditions is in the spotlight, in the wake of a tragedy where six students and a teacher from Tanjong Katong Primary School died, while climbing on Mount Kinabalu in Sabah as part of an overseas learning journey, called the Omega Challenge last week. Their Singaporean adventure guide was killed as well, and a teacher and a student from the school are still missing.

Another school head said scenario training will be conducted to equip students with necessary skills to react to emergencies – such as dealing with an injury.

“We have to think about many categories of risk, covering issues from whether the children have enough food and water, to where the nearest medical facilities are,” said Ms Haslindah Bahrom, Vice-Principal and Chief Safety Officer at Eunos Primary School. “If there are possible risks, we discuss how to mitigate them. It’s not just for overseas excursions. We do this for learning journeys within Singapore – and even for activities within school, like Sports Day and carrying out experiments in our Science labs.”

The onus is also on educators to assess the student’s ability for such physically demanding programmes.

Said Ms Haslindah: “As you train your students, you are able to identify which students are having trouble keeping up with the training or they may have old injuries that may come back to haunt them or they are struggling with that. I think as educators you have to make a decision whether the student should drop out of the programme or we make a decision to moderate the intensity of the programme so that every student can participate in the programme.”

HOLISTIC LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Educators encourage parents to send their children on overseas expeditions as they contribute to a holistic learning experience. Some students who took up the Omega Challenge at Tanjong Katong Primary told Channel NewsAsia that the expedition had taught them valuable life skills.

“It teaches you perseverance and discipline and it pushes your limits and tests them,” said one of them, Zara Karim. “Mount Kinabalu taught me a lot of skills like how to work with people, how to communicate. And that’s been very useful in project work and working within CCA with people.”

The students added that the six-month training before the expedition was sufficient to prepare them for the physical challenges.

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

June 10, 2015
Earth In Period Of Active Seismic Activity

Nature’s wrath struck in 2004, when a tsunami hit the coasts of several countries around the Indian Ocean. This marked the beginning of what geologists call an “active cycle”, where the Earth experiences greater seismic activity.

Said Professor Kerry Sieh, director at the Earth Observatory of Singapore: “The Earth goes through cycles of seismic energy release, and less release and more release.

“We have definitely been in the active cycle in the last 11 years since 2004. All the magnitude-8.4 earthquakes and bigger, up to 9.2, they all happened in the last 11 years. Several of those have been in Asia.”

The previous active cycle was in the 1950s to mid-1960s, which saw several earthquakes with a magnitude of a high 8 and above 9. But for the next 40 years, there were no records of a quake with a magnitude above 8.3, until 2004.

Since then, a string of devastating earthquakes has caused much destruction, like in Sumatra in 2005 and Fukushima, Japan, in 2011.

“We don’t know whether we are at the end of the cycle or not,” said Professor Sieh. “My hunch is we will continue to see a larger number of large earthquakes. But that’s only a hunch because we don’t really have a way of telling whether we are at the end of the cycle or not.”

In response to the recent Sabah quake, Professor Sieh supported the call by Malaysia’s Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin to relook safety protocols for climbers on Mount Kinabalu and also offered his team’s expertise.

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

June 10, 2015