A GROUP of elderly Chinesemen quickly surrounded the cars bearing the logo of Syarikat Air Johor Holdings Sdn Bhd (SAJ) as the vehicles pulled up in front of a coffee shop at Kampung Chamek, about an hour's drive from Kluang, Johor, on Monday.The complaints are the same -- no water supply for almost a week, made worse by the fact that it was during the Chinese New Year celebrations.

The SAJ officials had a hard time explaining that the ongoing drought had caused the shortage.

They do not speak Chinese while the residents, with the exception of the village chief, could only manage rudimentary Bahasa Malaysia.

My colleague Ben Tan, who was the only Chinese in the SAJ convoy, was of not much help either -- he can only speak the Teo Chew dialect while the villagers are mostly Hokkiens.

"But they can understand a bit lah...I told them the big Sungai Mengkibol, which cuts through the Kluang town, now looks just like a longkang (drain)," said Ben when I asked him what he told the emotional elderly woman with a yellow bucket in her hand.

The tense situation only eased when two SAJ water tankers arrived a short while later. 

The crowd started to disperse as everyone quickly went back to their houses to find pails and water containers. 

The heat from the scorching sun, meanwhile, was so intense. It was, however, a relief that the small settlement of mostly Chinese smallholders is located on a hilly terrain that is blessed with constant cooling breeze.

"It's the El Nino effect," declared Jamaluddin Jalil, the SAJ corporate communication chief, who was with us.

"We could understand the residents' anger because they have to celebrate the Chinese New Year without water supply. But there is nothing much we can do about it as the rivers here are so dried up, that we are even at risk of having to shut down some of our water processing plants soon."

Jamaluddin said the SAJ team in Kluang, which had been beefed up by those from other districts, had been working round-the-clock for the past two weeks to ensure that more than 25,000 residents of the town received adequate water supply.

"It is not easy, especially over the past few days as the number of residents here had almost doubled with more people coming home for the festivities."

On the last check yesterday, the water level at Sungai Semberong Barat was still down at 10ml per day (mlpd) while the bigger Sungai Semberong Timur was at 60mlpd. 

The critical level is 50mlpd.

SAJ is also worried about the water level at dams in Bekok, Yong Peng and Congok, Mersing.

Batu Pahat, Mersing and possibly Muar, are now in danger of joining Kluang with the water rationing exercise. 

Other districts may follow suit if the dry spell continues.

"We do get some rain here and there, but they are no good as they all fall at the wrong places and not in the catchment areas," said Jamaluddin. 

"We may even have to do cloud-seeding soon." 

On SAJ's decision to start water rationing in Kluang on the eve of Chinese New Year on Saturday which many considered an insensitive act, Jamaluddin said it had no choice as the water level at the rivers had dropped dramatically a few days earlier.

"We tried to push the rationing to a later date but our technical people said if we had done that, things would be much worse later and we definitely have to close down several of our main plants when the rivers run dry."

From his explanation about the situation, the only option available seems to be offering prayers to God for the rain to come soon.

Some of the SAJ workers at their operation centre in Kluang even suggested for the much respected state religious adviser, Datuk Noh Gadot, to be invited to lead a sembahyang hajat (special prayers) for rain there. 

Nonetheless, on the more practical side of things, probably the authorities could learn a lesson from this ongoing drought to come up with a better water distribution strategy.

It may cost millions or even billions of ringgit to built a new piping system, but it would be worth the trouble if the benefit of basic necessities such as water can be made available to the people.

After all, if Johor can supply water to Singapore without any interruption during this drought season, it would be a shame if nothing could be done to prevent its own people from having to endure the rationing.