25-Year-Old UKM Student Passes Away After Falling 60m Off Bukit Tabur

A Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia student died after falling while climbing Bukit Tabur in Taman Melawati here today.

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Solihah, the third of five siblings, had worked part-time at a bank while studying for her Masters degree in economics.

Solihah Ab Rahman, 25, is believed to have started her hike at around 8am yesterday with seven friends.

Tragedy struck after Solihah passed Checkpoint 10, which is about 470m above sea level. She was supposed to leap across two large boulders but lost her footing and fell.

Fire and Rescue Department operations commander Amer Haizal Sahek said his department received a distress call from one of the hikers at 10.38am.

“We arrived at 10.50am at the foot of the hill near an apartment in Bukit Mas and set up our command centre there.

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“Twenty minutes later, five firemen began the trek up the hill to where the victim was found unconscious at around 12.45pm,” he told pressmen at the scene yesterday.

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Fire and Rescue Department Assistant Superintendent Juyana@ Azlan Musa said the search and rescue team took about half an hour to bring out the victim from the location where she was found unconscious.

“She was found at a steep cliff,” he added.

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“Due to her condition and the steep hike down the hill, we decided to call for a helicopter to airlift her out.”

He said the fire department helicopter, which was dispatched from the Subang Airport, arrived at around 3.30pm.

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Solihah was then winched out and flown to Hospital Kuala Lumpur.

However, she was unresponsive to resuscitation. She was later pronounced dead at around 4.30pm.

Her eldest sister went to the hospital after receiving a call from Solihah’s friends, informing her of the accident.

“Solihah loved outdoor activities but I did not expect her to go climb a hill,” said the sister, who declined to be named.

She said Solihah’s parents, who live in Manir, Terengganu, would be here to claim the body today after the post-mortem was performed.

Fakhrul Nizam Tahar, 25, a school mate of the victim since primary school, said the group had been hiking for two hours and was on the way up between Checkpoints 10 and 11.

“She fell while she was trying to reposition her body to face the wall while on a ledge.

“She was trying to reach out to grab the rock face, but slipped before she could reach it,” he said.

Fakhrul added that it was the victim’s maiden trip to Tabur, while it was the second time for him.