A group of 22 employees embarked on a team-building experience at a camping resort in Gopeng, Malaysia, a town known for adventure tourism activities.
The group, composed of employees of the Langkawi and Seberang Perai Tengah Public Works Departments, planned on a whitewater rafting adventure on the nearby Sungai Jahang (Jahang River).
On November 15, 2024, around 3:30 pm, the group, accompanied by six guides, put on the river for a six-kilometer rafting excursion.
The river had swollen due to recent continuous, heavy rains, making the whitewater more challenging than usual.
About four kilometers into the trip, a raft carrying six passengers and a guide capsized. Three passengers were swept away by the current.
The victims were pulled from the water by members of the public, and just before 6 pm, emergency services were called. A team of firefighters from the Perak Fire and Rescue Department in Gopeng rushed to the scene.
All three rafters were declared dead.
Adventure Tourism: Part of the Malaysian Economy
Whitewater rafting is an increasingly popular adventure activity in Malaysia, particularly in and around Gopeng, in the Kampar District of the state of Perak, on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula.
Ecotourism and adventure travel are seen in Maylasia as significant sources of revenue, job creation and sustainable economic development.
However, risks are inherent in adventure tourism and outdoor recreation.
Malaysia has a rainy period from November through April, where heavy rains can raise water levels and turn normally placid rivers into torrents with dangerous whitewater rapids. The tragic incident where three government officials drowned follows two other drownings from rafting on the same river, in 2019 and 2021.
And in 2010, a mission in the Lubuk Yu Recreational Forest in the town of Maran, Malaysia, to rescue a drowning victim led to the death of seven rescuers who fell ill following the rescue effort. Some initially attributed the sicknesses to supernatural events. It was later determined, however, that the rescuers had contracted leptospirosis and melioidosis, bacterial diseases found in muddy soils and contaminated water.
River Activities Banned
The day after the triple drowning incident, the Kampar District Disaster Management Committee ordered an immediate suspension of all recreational and outdoor water sports activities involving rivers—including rafting and tubing—in the Kampar district.
Perak Amanah Youth chief Khairol Najib Hashim had urged the government to issue the ban, and asked water recreation operators to suspend all “extreme activities” until the weather conditions returned to normal. He recommended the government issue “strict guidelines” on water activities in all rivers in the state throughout the monsoon season.
“The safety and lives of participants must be the top priority,” he said.
Call for Adventure Safety Regulations
Professor Datuk Dr Md Amin Md Taff, Vice-Chancellor of the Sultan Idris University of Education (UPSI), and an outdoor recreation expert who previously represented Malaysia in the kayak event, and Associate Professor Dr Mazuki Mohd Yasim, Director of the UPSI Co-Curriculum Centre, called for a regulatory body to be established that would oversee whitewater rafting activities.
UPSI runs the Outdoor Recreation and Leadership Challenge Academy (AURORA), which is involved in adventure leadership and outdoor recreation.
The professors noted that the number of whitewater rafting incidents has increased, illustrating “significant weaknesses in risk management.”
Some rafting providers, they said, don’t follow standard operating procedures (SOPs), and don’t assess weather, water levels and participant abilities.
Continued safety incidents may harm Malaysia’s reputation as an attractive destination for adventure tourists, they noted.
The UPSI leaders called for providers in Gopeng to “take drastic steps to improve operating standards.”
They called for rafting operators to:
- Ensure rafting equipment like PFDs and helmets meet safety standards, and are properly inspected and maintained
- Ensure raft guides are suitably trained in raft handling, risk management, and emergency procedures
- Conform to SOPs around limiting participant numbers, communicating risks to participants, and providing safety briefings
To help ensure whitewater rafting safety, they recommended the government create a regulatory body which would set safety requirements in topics such as guide training, and see that rafting providers were audited to help ensure conformance with the requirements.
This is similar to calls in Switzerland, New Zealand, the UK and the eastern European nation of Georgia to develop adventure safety regulations, after incidents in those countries.
Separately, improvements were called for to environmental management regulations in Malaysia to manage development in flood-prone areas and to reduce risks from flooding.
Guidelines Developed; Water Recreation Activities Allowed to Resume
After the halt to outdoor water sports, representatives of the Kampar District Disaster Management Committee and private raft operators immediately held a series of urgent meetings.
One rafting professional said, “We in Gopeng have gone through a crazy number of meetings in the last almost 48 hours.”
Government officials and private sector representatives quickly created a “Guideline for the Operation of Recreational Activities and Water Sports in Kampar District” to be used by whitewater rafting operators in the district.
Following the production of the guidelines, on November 22—six days after the suspension of water recreation activities was put into effect—the Disaster Management Committee permitted outdoor water sports activities, including tubing and whitewater rafting, to resume.
Whitewater River Safety in Malaysia
The whitewater boating industry in Malaysia has had important safety measures in place, well before the triple drowning on Sungai Jahang.
Most river guides in Gopeng are certified by the International Rafting Federation.
A National Occupational Skills Standard (NOSS), “Water-Based Adventure Tour Guiding, Level 3,” was published by Malaysia’s Department of Skills Development in 2016. (There is no level 1, 2, 4 or 5 for the Adventure Tour Guide job area, which has separate sections for guides of land-, water- and air-based activities.)
The 87-page standard covers competency levels, certificate awarding, job competencies, and specific work activities (such as risk assessment, safety briefing and post-trip reporting). Performance criteria, such as completing a Risk Analysis Management System (RAMS) checklist, checking client health condition, observing weather conditions, identifying and controlling on-river hazards, and assessing emergency situations, are associated with each work activity.
Following the November incident on the river, the Malaysian outdoor sector discussed development of a comprehensive whitewater rafting standard for Malaysian rafting operators, which the private sector would develop and which the government could approve.
The Malaysian Rafting Association was suggested as an industry body to help lead development of this standard, in collaboration with the Pesuruhjaya Sukan Malaysia (Sports Commissioner Office of Malaysia).
The outdoor industry private sector in Malaysia did not universally welcome the call for compulsory safety regulations for their sport; the development of a standard or code of practice—for the rafting sector, by the rafting sector—is seen as a strategy to head off potentially burdensome regulation.
Malaysia may be informed by the recently completed process to develop a Code of Practice for Outdoor Adventure Education Activities in Singapore, following a series of safety incidents in the adventure sector in that country. Singapore’s 129-page standard gives highly detailed and prescriptive instructions on adventure safety, and is published as an official standard of the nation’s standards-publishing body.
Outdoor Sector Trainings in Malaysia
Instructors from outside the country fly into Malaysia to deliver International Rafting Federation-certified rafting trainings, but outdoor and adventure professionals in Malaysia are eager to showcase and further develop homegrown trainings for the industry.
The Malaysia Aquatic Rescue Association, Life Saving Society Malaysia (LSSM), and Wilderness and Austere Medicine Society (WAMS), all based in Malaysia, provide the opportunity for locally-created trainings for outdoor instructors and guides.
The Recreational Coaches Association of Malaysia (Persatuan Jurulatih Rekreasi Malaysia, PJRM) has been offering Outdoor Recreation trainings for years. Malaysia Challenge Ropes Course (MCRC) courses are also available. The Malaysian Canoe Association (MASCA) offers paddlesport trainings, and the Southeast Asia Climbing Federation (SEACF), an alliance of Southeast Asia climbing associations, offers climbing instructor and other courses.
Conclusion
Some rafting operators in the Gopeng highlands have a reputation for quality and excellence in risk management. But without established, detailed adventure safety standards, backed up by an accreditation scheme or regulatory requirements, not all rafting operators show the same commitment to high standards of risk management.
The tragic death of three rafters in Gopeng is a reminder of the risks inherent in adventure travel activities. It also illuminates opportunities for Malaysia’s outdoor adventure industry to collaborate with government bodies to further develop the safety standards, training schemes, and risk management structures that will help more people safely enjoy the beautiful natural landscapes and adventure opportunities across Malaysia.
