sign in a cave in Laos

20 December 2010

Tin dredge at Dengkil, Selangor




As far as I know there is only one remaining tin dredge in Selangor. I used to know of two, and have photos of them, taken from flights in/out of KLIA and LCCT.
Dredge from plane July 2007 -


When looking at Google Earth, one is still shown.
And I was able to find the location of the 2nd one by going back in the historical imagery on GE. This is quite a fascinating tool on GE. This dredge was at Payah Indah.
This is the Petaling Lake dredge -
Paya Indah July 2007

The 'missing' dredge at Paya Indah is Petaling Dredge No. 9, which as I suspected is a new one, built in 1982. This is a 5600 tonnes bucketline dredge equipped with 24 cu ft (680 litres) buckets and digs to a depth of 130 ft (40 m).

Several years ago there was talk in the press about converting this dredge into a museum. The Sun reported on this.

UPDATE January 2014 - According to Mohd Ezuddin Samian's comments below, this Petaling Dredge No. 9 had been sold and shipped overseas.

Dredges are still being constructed in Malaysia, at Port Klang (and also in Singapore). New ones have been sent to Ghana, Ecuador and Brazil.

Older Malaysian dredges have been sent overseas. One (PT7) has gone to Sierra Leone, 2 to Bangka Island in Indonesia. Another to Zaire.

Anyway on my birthday in Dec, Jan and I did a trip to see the last remaining dredge. It is located in Dengkil, and can be seen from the ELITE highway just before the last turn to the KLIA highway.

Jan photographing the dredge
highway signs

As we approached, a guard stationed on the dredge came to see who we were and immediately started talking into a walkie talkie. We talked to him across the water and asked if we could go onto the dredge, but he said no. He told us the dredge is up for sale, and might be bought by Australians, so that is why it is guarded. The Malay guard even had a dog, though the dog took no interest in us.

[The dredge was still there in Nov 2012, April 2015]

Putra Jaya behind the dredge -
tree growing on the tail
The buckets -
Front view


There are some nice pictures of the dredge on a blog, the photos were presumably taken before the dredge had any guard or fence around it.

The dredge seems to be in very good condition, especially compared to dredge T.T. No. 5 at Tanjung Tualang in Perak. I noticed it has moved slightly since the last GE image from Jan 2010.

UPDATE January 2014 - According to Mohd Ezuddin Samian's comments below, this dredge is the "Sri Banting Dredge". See details on OCIE page.

We saw a strange green building near the highway and went to have a look. Checking on GE shows it was built between 2007 and 2009. We went in and were totally amazed at the amount of stuff dumped there. Loads of childrens' toys, clothes, furniture. The place looked as if it had been almost fully constructed then was abandoned for whatever reason.
The dredge from the roof.

On the way out using a different track, we drove over a rubbish dump!
We then went to see some sand quarrying and a landfill site.
See more on Selangor Dreding history.

© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission