Loading The Rajang, Gauge by Gauge…
Where the river is right now at every gauge from Kapit down to Sibu, each against the alert levels the department publishes for it.
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The water that floods Sibu is already on its way days before it gets here. It falls in Kapit, Baleh, Song and Kanowit, and it comes down the Rajang past a line of gauges the Drainage and Irrigation Department reads every fifteen minutes.
This page shows all of them at once, in the order the water travels — farthest upriver first, then the gauges in town. Each reading sits against the alert levels the department publishes for that exact gauge, so a number here means something without you having to remember what is high for Kanowit and what is high for Salim.
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Below every alert level
0.8 m in town
Right now
Every gauge is below its alert level
That is the river’s ordinary state. It does not mean anywhere is safe, and it does not account for rain that has fallen but not arrived yet. Measured .
These are measurements, not a warning
The gauges marked “tidal” move on their own
Kapit
8.6 m
Below the alert level · 3.3 m under the alert level
The Rajang at Kapit, far above the tidal reach. Nothing the sea does moves this gauge, so what it shows is rain and only rain — which makes it the cleanest early read on the river Sibu has. The water passing Kapit today is days from here.
Song
6.0 m
Below the alert level · 4.6 m under the alert level
Between Kapit and Kanowit, and still above the tide. If Kapit and Song are both climbing, the rise is real and it is coming.
KanowitTidal
1.5 m
Below the alert level · 3.1 m under the alert level
Pasar Kanowit is on DID Sarawak's own flood record at 0.50 m in the same events that put water into Sibu — the same flood, arriving earlier.
DurinTidal
1.7 m
Below the alert level · 1.8 m under the alert level
At the Durin crossing on the road between Sibu and Kanowit — the last gauge before the town.
Express Terminal, town centreTidal
0.8 m
Below the alert level · 1.7 m under the alert level
The Rajang beside the express boat terminal. This is the gauge the town's flood-level page reads, and the one whose four rungs are worth knowing: Alert 2.50 m, Warning 2.62 m, Danger 2.90 m.
Sarawak MaritimeTidal
0.2 m
Below the alert level · 2.6 m under the alert level
A few hundred metres down from the Express Terminal, on a lower datum — it reads below zero at low water, which is ordinary here and not a fault.
Sungai SalimTidal
1.7 m
Below the alert level · 0.9 m under the alert level
Salim is one of the areas DID's flood record names most often, and it sits outside the flood control scheme that protects the town centre.
StabauTidal
1.9 m
Below the alert level · 1.6 m under the alert level
Jalan Utama Salim Stabau is on DID's own record at 0.60 m — the deepest of the Sibu entries.
Who actually raises the alarm: the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee
The committee is what declares a flood, opens the relief centres and announces both, through the state portal, local radio and the press. Nothing on this page is that announcement. For help leaving a flooded house call the Civil Defence Force on 991; for police, ambulance or fire, 999.
Two things have to happen at once
DID Sarawak's flood record for Sibu keeps giving the same cause in the same words: continuous rain meeting a high tide. Either one alone the town absorbs. The upriver gauges above tell you about the first half; the tide is the other half, and DID publishes the Sarawak king tide dates a year ahead.
Why the gauges in town tell you less than they look like they do
Every gauge from Kanowit down is inside the tidal reach. The Rajang at the Express Terminal ran from about −0.4 m before dawn to +1.7 m mid-morning and back down again on an ordinary day in August, with no rain anywhere — more than two metres of movement, twice a day, that means nothing at all. That is why this page never says "rising": at these gauges the direction is mostly the moon. What matters is how high the peak gets, and whether the low water between tides stops going back down.
The levels are the department's, not ours
Alert, Warning and Danger are different at every gauge — 2.50 m at the Express Terminal, 4.59 m at Kanowit, 11.90 m at Kapit — because a river that floods at three metres in one place floods at twelve in another. Those numbers are read live from DID's own table beside each reading, so when the department revises one, this page follows it the same day. Nothing here is transcribed by hand.
The flood control scheme stops at the town centre
Sibu's MP has said publicly that the existing scheme covers the town centre and not the outskirts — the west bank and the Salim areas in particular. Those are also the places DID's own flood records name most often, which is the honest reason for a page like this: if the plan does not cover your street, the gauge nearest you is worth watching yourself.
Readings are automatic telemetry, unchecked at publication, and can be revised. The alert levels are the department’s own, published per gauge.
Source: DID Sarawak (Jabatan Pengairan dan Saliran Sarawak) — iHydro live water level and published alert levels; DID Sarawak recorded flood events register, checked 16 August 2026 (last week).
Sungai MerahTidal
0.9 m
Below the alert level · 1.9 m under the alert level
The creek through the old bazaar, north of the centre.
Sungai SeduanTidal
1.6 m
Below the alert level · 1.8 m under the alert level
East of the centre, toward the airport road.