The Rajang at Sibu: Flood Levels

The river's level in town against the four levels DID Sarawak publishes for that gauge — plus why Sibu only floods when upriver rain meets a king tide, and which areas the flood scheme leaves out.

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Town Tools builds free, public tools for Sibu and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Be reachable when the warning comes

When the river rises fast, minutes matter. The surest thing you can do today is make sure the town can reach you — sign up for the alerts and keep the numbers to hand.

Sarawak Disaster Management Committee

The body that declares a flood, opens relief centres and announces both. Its statements go out through the state government portal, local radio and the press.

DID Sarawak — iHydro

The state's own gauge readings, refreshed about every fifteen minutes, with a 24-hour history per station so you can see whether the river is still climbing.

Civil Defence Force (APM)

Call for help leaving a flooded house or moving someone who cannot move themselves.

991

Emergency

Police, ambulance and fire.

999

The flood degrees

Below the alert level

Where the river is now

The river is under 2.50 m at the Express Terminal — its ordinary range, tide included.

Nothing to do. If heavy rain has been falling in Kapit, Song or Kanowit, check back over the next day or two — that water takes time to arrive.

Waspada — Alert (2.50 m)

from 2.50 m

The river has reached the level at which the department starts watching this gauge closely.

Move anything you would not want wet off the floor, especially in Salim, along Jalan Lanang and on the west bank.
Check the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee and local radio for what the district is saying.
If you park low, move the car to higher ground now rather than later.

Amaran — Warning (2.62 m)

from 2.62 m

Only 12 cm above the alert level. Low-lying areas start taking water at about this point.

Expect water in the places that always take it first — Jalan Lanang, Salim and Stabau, the Sungai Salim area.
Have documents, medicines and a phone charger together in one bag.
Do not drive through standing water; you cannot see what the road has done underneath it.

Bahaya — Danger (2.90 m)

from 2.90 m

The department's highest published level for this gauge. Relief centres have opened at this stage before.

Where the water reaches

The parts of town that have flooded before — worth knowing which one is yours. This is where water has reached, not a street-by-street prediction.

Jalan Lanang — On DID Sarawak's own flood record at 0.30 m in a January event

Salim and Jalan Utama Salim Stabau — Recorded at 0.60 m — and outside the town-centre flood control scheme

Kawasan Sungai Salim — Recorded at 0.20 m

The west bank — Also outside the town-centre scheme

Skim Tanjung Kabang — Recorded at 0.60 m

Hospital Sibu approach — Recorded at 0.20 m

Pasar Kanowit — Upriver at Kanowit, recorded at 0.50 m — the same flood, arriving earlier

Worth knowing

Two things have to happen at once

DID Sarawak's own flood records for Sibu keep giving the same cause, in the same words: continuous rain coinciding with a high tide, which pushes the Rajang up. That is why watching Sibu's weather is not enough. The rain that floods this town falls in Kapit, Baleh, Song and Kanowit and takes days to arrive, and it only becomes a flood if it reaches the delta while a king tide is holding the water back. So the useful question is never just "is it raining". It is: has it been raining hard upriver, and is the tide big this week.

The king tide dates are published a year ahead

DID Sarawak publishes an annual Sarawak King Tide Period list — every big-tide date for the year with a time and a predicted height, out in January and covering the whole twelve months. That makes the tide the one half of this town's flood mechanism you can plan around, and it now has a page of its own: /sibu-sarawak-my/king-tide-dates. One caution DID states itself: the predicted heights on that list are measured at Pending Port in Kuching and are "valid for Kuching and its vicinity" as a general guideline only. So the dates carry to Sibu and the heights do not — they are not this gauge's numbers, they are not on this gauge's datum, and they should never be read against the ladder above.

The flood control scheme stops at the town centre

Sibu's MP, Oscar Ling Chai Yew, has said publicly that the existing flood control plan covers the town centre and not the outskirts — specifically the west bank and the Salim areas. Those are also the places DID's own flood records name most often. If you live there, the plan that protects the shophouse blocks is not protecting you, which is the honest reason to watch this gauge yourself.

The four rungs are close together

At this gauge, Alert is 2.50 m, Warning 2.62 m and Danger 2.90 m — forty centimetres from the first rung to the last. On a river that already moves more than a metre with each tide, that means the difference between watching and acting can arrive within a single tide cycle. It is a reason to act at Alert rather than wait for Warning.

Where this reading comes from, and what happens when it stops

This page now reads DID Sarawak's own iHydro portal rather than the national one. The national feed had been publishing a flat 0.00 for most of Sarawak's gauges, this one included, which the site refuses to show rather than print a made-up level — so for three days this page said the gauge was not reporting while the state's own portal had real readings all along. If iHydro itself goes quiet, the page will say so again: the ladder, the flooded areas and the numbers to call stay on the page either way, and a level is never invented to fill the gap.

Who declares the degree

Jabatan Pengairan dan Saliran (DID) Sarawak

Website: did.sarawak.gov.my

DID measures the rivers, publishes the four levels used on this page, and issues the flood warnings. Whether a flood is declared, and whether relief centres open, is the district disaster committee's decision — not DID's, and not this page's.