Sarawak News - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 11:32 - 0 Comments

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Authorities ‘pointing fingers’ over tree upkeep

Woman nearly crashed when tree branch fell onto her car

MIRI: A woman, who nearly crashed her car when a tree branch fell onto her Toyota Galdina along the Sungai Dalam-Miri Airport road yesterday morning, claims that authorities are refusing to take responsibility for the maintenance of the trees.

The 30-year-old victim said the Miri City Council (MCC) and Miri Public Works Department (JKR) are “pointing fingers” at each other over the incident.

“I’m disappointed with the answers given by MCC and the Public Works Department as they have denied responsibility for taking care of the trees planted there,” she told the media yesterday.

According to the victim, when she contacted MCC a spokesperson said only the trees before the Miri Airport traffic light were under the council’s jurisdiction and advised her to contact JKR.

She claimed that when she did so, a JKR engineer told her the department was only responsible for road maintenance at the location.

“Who owns the trees then? No authority claimed responsibility when I called the departments for clarification,” she said.

In the incident the victim was driving to work at 7.41am when a tree branch fell onto her moving car and damaged the windscreen.

She claimed she had to pull on the handbrake to avoid being involved in an accident as the tree branch and debris blocked her view of the road.

“It is lucky that no untoward incident happened. It could have involved a road accident. I hope the authorities concerned will do something to solve this problem,” she said.

Meanwhile, a team of MCC landscape personnel were seen cutting branches from the trees on that particular stretch of road at about 9am.