Survivors and family members of campers killed in a 2022 landslide at an agritourism farm in Malaysia have filed a lawsuit contending the disaster was caused by negligence – not only excessive rainfall as an earlier government report concluded.
“We want this lawsuit to bring to the public’s attention the real reasons why this tragedy happened,” said Tan Ei Ein, whose 7-year-old son, Zech, was killed in the landslide.
The government “is trying to save itself from trouble by blaming it on nature,” Tan told VOA, describing the report as a “whitewash.”
“That way nobody needs to take any accountability,” Tan said.
In December 2022, the earth swept over tents at a campsite on Father’s Organic Farm in in the rural community of Batang Kali, in Selangor state, about 50 kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur.
The landslide left 31 people dead, including 13 children. Some of the 61 survivors had serious injuries.
Disputing the cause
Last year, the federal government issued a report on the tragedy that said the landslide was triggered by slope failure after unusually high rainfall over a period of weeks. The report said there was no strong evidence that human activity was a contributing factor.
The report did not address standing questions about why a farm and campsite were able to operate in what experts call a risky location and did not mention an environmental assessment approved by a federal agency a decade earlier that said the area where the farm and campsite were located should not be developed.
While the lawsuit also said rainfall was a significant factor behind the landslide, it additionally accused the state and local governments of multiple failures and said the property owner and farm operator also made careless missteps. Those entities, along with a state agency, a government-linked company and another private company, are targets of the lawsuit. No federal agencies are being sued.
The landslide started downhill from a state government road on a section of a hill where there was a manmade embankment before striking the farm and campsite below.
The lawsuit blames the Selangor state government’s public works department for shoddy construction when the embankment was built, which increased the likelihood of a landslide.
The lawsuit also accuses the state public works department and Infrasel, a private road work company contracted by the state, of not conducting proper safety testing and necessary maintenance on the embankment.
“The government’s public report says that there was no one to blame but, more or less, an act of God, the rainfall caused the tragedy,” Teckwyn Lim, a geographer and honorary associate professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, told VOA.
Lim is part of a team of scientists, lawyers and a geotechnical engineer who investigated the tragedy for the plaintiffs.
“What we are saying is that ‘no, it was actually the result of negligence from the authorities and also the landowners. If the people in charge, if the government had been doing its job, then those lives wouldn’t have been lost,’” Lim said.
The government report did not blame any agency or private company, saying slope and road maintenance were conducted on a regular schedule.
Development of the property
Father’s Organic Farm was on property owned by Malaysia Botanical Gardens Resort. Last year, VOA reported that Kong Yew Foong and his father Kong Hon Kong, who also goes by the name David Kong, were listed in Companies Commission of Malaysia records as directors at Malaysia Botanical Gardens Resort. Earlier this year, Forbes listed David Kong’s net worth at $825 million.
The lawsuit points to an environmental impact assessment (EIA) approved by the Department of Environment in 2013 that said the area where the farm and campsite were located was not to be developed. VOA was first to report on the existence of this EIA about one month after the landslide.
In January 2023 correspondence with VOA, Malaysia’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change wrote: “The area of which Father’s Organic Farm was built had been determined as a No-Go Area. Therefore, the development of Father’s Organic Farm was in violation of the approval conditions of the EIA report approved to Malaysia Botanical Gardens Resort.”
But the assessment was not addressed in the government’s landslide report.
“The fact that the government report makes no mention of the EIA suggests that they wanted to cover it up,” said Lim. “The 2013 EIA says the site should’ve been kept as forest land and the implication was that’s because the site was too sensitive to develop, meaning it’s unsafe to develop.”
The suit also accuses the campsite operator and the property owner of negligence for not following regulations because the farm and campsite were allegedly run without the appropriate business license, development permits and engineering approvals. The lawsuit says the local municipal council should have closed the campsite down for not following regulations.
The plaintiffs also blame owners for clearing land and removing trees below the embankment, which they said might have kept the landslide from reaching the campsite.
The lawsuit does not specify a figure for compensation for the families of the victims who were killed. The defendants listed in the lawsuit are BL Agro, which the plaintiffs say is the new name of the business that owned and operated Father’s Organic Farm and the campsite; Malaysia Botanical Gardens Resort; Selangor state public works department; Infrasel, a private road work company contracted by the state of Selangor; the Hulu Selangor Municipal Council; the state government of Selangor and the Selangor State Agricultural Development Corporation.
VOA left messages for Amirudin Shari, who serves as the equivalent of a chief minister for Selangor state, but has not received a response. Amirudin Shari is not a defendant. VOA has also not received responses to its inquiries from representatives of the other defendants.
“We want accountability,“ said Loh Teng Shui, the father of 7-year-old landslide victim Zech. “So far no one has been held accountable and we want the full truth to come out.”
