Works Minister S Samy Vellu should resign or be sacked from his post over the major rockslide incident at the New Klang Valley Expressway (NKVE) yesterday.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat (Keadilan) deputy president Dr Syed Husin Ali said that Samy should be held responsible for the incident since the minister was aware that small rocks had earlier fallen from the slope but failed to take preventive measures.

"He should be held fully responsible for the incident. He would have to resign if a similar incident happened in an efficient and democratic country. We should emulate this culture to ensure public funds and lives are not compromised because of the minister's carelessness," Syed Husin said in a press statement today.

He stressed that if the minister was unwilling to step down, then Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should sack Samy from his post in order to regain public confidence for the government.

During the incident, 20,000 tonnes of boulders and soil crashed onto the expressway between the Kota Damansara and Bukit Lanjan interchanges.

Initial explanation indicted that the cause of the incident was due to excessive water trapped at the upper portion of the slope.

Samy said no lives or vehicles were lost because monitoring work had been carried out since Sunday after some small rocks fell from the 60 metre-high slope.

Stroke of good luck

Despite this, Samy was later quoted in news report as saying the expressway had not been closed to traffic after Sunday's minor rockfall because the situation was not serious and the road closure would cause massive inconvenience.

It was a stroke of good luck that no lives or vehicles were lost when the major rockslide took place at between 6am and 7am yesterday, which brought down an avalanche of boulders and soil including a rock the size of a two-storey building.

The rockslide caused the closure of a four-kilometre stretch of the eight-lane highway. It will take between 10 and 14 days for the authorities to clear debris from the expressway.

"This incident showed the Works Ministry did not have any crisis management system. They were aware that rocks had fallen but no preventive actions were taken. Are motorists' lives less important than traffic congestion?" Syed Husin asked.

Describing Samy's decision as "unbelievable", the Keadilan leader however said it was fortunate that the incident had not caused any casualty or fatality.

Meanwhile, another opposition leader also took Samy to task over the incident.

"If there were already signs on Sunday of a possible rockfall, which could precipitate a disaster with terrible toll on human lives... why wasn't any public warning given for some 72 hours?" asked DAP leader Lim Kit Siang.