KUALA KRAI: Besides his mother, all Mohd Zafian Abdullah could save was his grey cat, Labu. Everything else he owned, including his house, was destroyed in the worst floods to have hit Malaysia in decades.

The three of them now live in a makeshift tent, constructed from scrap metal and plastic sheeting.

Nearby, an elderly widow, Hasnah Mohamad, walks around her ruined village, talking to neighbours to pass the time. She has no house left to clean or belongings to salvage from the rubble, and being idle only makes her depressed.

As Putrajaya calculates the cost of the damage from the recent floods, the now homeless villagers of Kampung Dusun Nyior in Kuala Krai, Kelantan, are setting up tents in their flattened village and bracing themselves for a future without any basic amenities.

The tiny village, tucked away in an oil palm estate and so remote that it cannot be found on maps, was almost completely destroyed after Sungai Kelantan burst its banks and pounded their homes a fortnight ago.

Where wooden houses used to stand, flimsy tents made out of donated tarpaulins, straw mats and planks have been erected to shelter the villagers who have nowhere else to go and no money to rebuild their homes.

Zalfian, 26, nudges the amber-eyed cat (which also goes by the name Puma) purring beside him. “I brought her with me to the relief centre. I couldn’t have just left the poor thing here when the flood hit,” he said.

Home now is a small, raised metal platform built from a metal frame he scavenged from the nearby cemetery, while the plastic tarp over his head was donated.

His former home, he said, is buried somewhere under a mound of debris.

“All I do now is eat and sleep, and clear out the foundation. I don’t even know when I can start work because the stall that I used to work at was destroyed by the flood. Definitely not next month,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

“I’m all out of capital. So I’m just going to stay here in this ‘tent’ until and unless the government helps,” said Zalfian, who makes and sells roti canai for a living.

Food so far has not been a problem for the 50 or so villagers of Kampung Dusun Nyior. Donations have come pouring in from non-governmental organisations and individuals since the flood subsided last week.

But Hasnah, 60, cannot imagine what will become of her and her two children when the food supplies stop and she is left to fend for her family alone.

Their home was swept away by the flood’s merciless pull, so now she and her children — one of whom is blind and intellectually disabled — live in one of the many tents dotting the ravaged village.

“I watched the flood swallow up my house with my own eyes that night. The water was like a huge wave. Furniture rose up, spinning in the rushing water. The water level was so high you could pluck the coconuts right from the boat.

“Now the water is gone, but I don’t know what we will do. It is all up to God. I just want the best for us. I just don’t want to have to go through that any more,” said Hasnah, in tears.

As she wiped the tears with a headscarf, Hasnah said she has no source of income apart from what her three other sons — who live in other states — send to her, adding that she is praying for the government to help her rebuild her house.

“I have little money, very little money. Even before the flood hit, I only had enough to feed the three of us. I’ve been out of work for five years. My husband died on Sept 19, 1992.”

Life has only worsened for Hasnah since the floods. At night, she is only able to squeeze in a few hours of sleep in the cramped tent.

The mere sound of an engine spurting to life or of falling rain jolts her awake and arouses a fear that another flood is coming. During the day, with no house left to clean, Hasnah said she spends the time wandering around the village and talking to her neighbours.

“If I just sit still, I will feel stressed. So I walk around, I talk to other people, I cook for everyone,” she said, gesturing towards a kitchen stove resting on a table which stood out in the open.

Her neighbour, Noriah Hussain, 63, is one of the few villagers whose house had withstood the flood, but a quick tour of her ruined home revealed gaping holes in the floor and in the ceiling.

“I don’t think the house will survive much longer. The ceiling panels are falling off as we speak because they are weighed down by mud,” Noriah told The Malaysian Insider.

“I’m moving out. Now I’m just waiting for my son to finish securing the tent.”

Noriah said her family had built the wooden house more than 30 years ago from scratch, and it was with a heavy heart that she had to bid goodbye to it.

At first, she thought she could continue living there and with the help of several volunteers, had managed to clear almost half of the thick mud that covered the floor.

But with her house threatening to fall apart, Noriah, like her neighbours, is now counting on government aid so that she will not have to live on the streets.

“I don’t have much savings left. I’m widowed and I have stopped working in the oil palm estates since 2006. If the government doesn’t help me, I will live like this until I die.”

Not a single villager in Kampung Dusun Nyior that The Malaysian Insider spoke to knew when the government would start providing aid to rebuild their homes, and none was optimistic that help was coming anytime soon.

Should there be no help coming, the villagers said they would simply live the rest of their days in their tents. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on January 9, 2015.