MV Pulau Kijang Tragedy

It was towards the end of the school holidays and families were rushing from Kuching towards home : Sarikei, Sibu, Kanowit,Bintangor, after spending a good holiday away from home. Travelling in Sarawak from town to town was possible only by the more expensive plane, a Twin Otter, or a Fokker, or by the rough, untarred road, or by the more traditional coastal steamer.

Personally I knew what it was like to travel by sea along the coast of Sarawak . In 1968 my Geography teacher Mr.David Watts,and his wife took my sixth Form class for a field trip to Kuchig and Bako National Park. It was a most memorable eye opening trip to study the coastal features and vegetation. I had my first taste of salty sea wind, and my first night experience at sea. there were beautiful stars in the dark sky, and the waves were just too gentle. It was a beautiful trip.

The Kuching-Sibu route was covered by MV Rajah Mas andMV Pulau Kijang, and for a long time, no mishap had happened. Sea vessels had always been very safe and the coastal waters of Sarawak never treacherous: no dangerous waves, no pirates,no dangerous spots. The coastal ship would leave Kuching or Sibu at about noon, and the passengers would spend a lovely night on board. The ship would arrive in Sarikei in the morning, and by noon in Sibu. So wharf labourers would have one whole afternoon to carry all the goods to the waiting lorries or simple trolleys. By evening the ship would be cleared and the next day, the ship would sail again to Kuching if there was nothing to hold it back with its cargo and new load of passengers. The route was so well charted and systematic.

On that fateful December day, hundreds of passengers bought tickets from Kuching and some had return tickets in their hands. Most were travelling as families, parents and their school going age children of different races - Chinese, Malay, Melanau,and Iban.

The MV Pulau Kijang was a handsome coastal boat which was built in the fifties and had plied the waters for sometime, carrying both cargoes and humans. The deck was usually full of passengers, and the cargo down below in the hull. There were a few cabins for the first class passengers and second class passengers. The ordinary passengers slept everywhere possible, and many just on top of the gunny sacks of rice, corn or boxes of tinned food in the hull. People were very simple and they were happy just to have a ticket and a place to lay their head for a night. They had brought their own food in a basket, some buns, some bottled water, and perhpas even a flask of hot water.


A relative who had already bought tickets for the fateful trip found his son to have very high fever and decided not to travel that day. He rushed his wife and child to the General Hospital in Kuching. He also told us that he felt that there were just too many passengers and that his child might be too sick on the sea journey. But again no one really paid any attention to sea safety then.

I heard another story that a woman had a bad dream and she decided to stay on in Kuching for the next ship or take the aeroplane. She sold her ticket at the wharf . She could not get any air ticket that day as it was the end of December and so she took a plane out of Kuching the next day, arriving in Sibu just to know there had been a terrible tragedy.

According to the newspaper report, a buoy marking the shifting and dangerous sandbars off Sarikei towards the sea had become adrift and in the darkness of the early morning the Captain could not see the direction. So when the ship went aground, chaos broke out. Then were huge waves coming upon them as the winds suddenly changed and Pulau Kijang started to sink.

So in the darkness, before dawn broke, a few hundred souls were lost.

The Police Personnel, the Navy and the Army came on hand to help but it was too late. The helicopters air lifted the dead bodies to Sarikei and the pilots said that they could sea bodies floating in every direction on the water. They made so many trips that they lost count. The Navy was called to help but they could only find dead bodies. They worked non stop for two days, and for a week they were still looking for dead bodies and survivors. the people of Sarikei had never seen such activity before. So many stayed at the wharf to wait for good news but they were disappointed.

The Sarikei hospital was extremely busy and a radiologist, Daisy Harry , from Sibu Lau King Howe Hospital was directed to Sarikei to x-ray dental identification. She must have had a terrible time during this exceptional call of servie. I learn from a friend that she is now in Gold Coast Australia. Many doctors, nurses and hospital staff had related horror stories of this tragedy. It was a horrific and unforgetable event.

this was the worst sea tragedy ever in Sarawak and that day, 26 December 1973 was indeed a dark day. So many kampongs, longhouses, and towns mourned their dead. Some said that there were more than 200 victims.Some families were completely wiped out leaving no descendants. Some said there were 150. But we would probably never know the real figure. How many actually did the Pulau Kikang carry on board on that fateful trip?

All the dead were buried together in a mass grave and later the government build a small memorial in Sarikei for the tragic victims.

Sea travel was never the same after this tragedy.