Where is Batu Arang, Selangor located?

Batu Arang is located in Selangor, Malaysia, at approximate coordinates 3.3188°, 101.4721°.

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Batu Arang

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Batu Arang

Coordinates3.32°, 101.47°

Demographic figures from Department of Statistics Malaysia. Overview below cites Wikipedia and may reference a different year.

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City facts

Overview

Batu Arang is a town in Gombak District, Selangor, Malaysia, that is located about 50 km from the capital Kuala Lumpur. Coal was first discovered in the region in 1908, when British authorities found large deposits of coal reserves that could be commercially viable and fuel a railway system. The town was established when the British started mining operations. In 1915, a railway system linking Batu Arang and Kuang was built to transport coal to the rest of the country. As coal output and demand increased, rail services to and from Kuala Lumpur expanded. The demand for coal from Batu Arang skyrocketed due to the First World War, which led to a reduction of coal imports. The local coal was frequently sold to the railway companies, power stations, tin mines, dredges, and end customers.

History & geography

History

Coal was first discovered in Malaya in 1908 by Haji Abdul Hadi, a Malay man who was looking for tin near Rawang in Ulu Selangor. Samples were sent to the Inspector of Mines at Kuala Kubu, who forwarded them to the Federated Malay States Geological Survey Department, which sent a geologist to investigate the location of discovery and discovered there are large deposits of coal in this location. There was strong demand in Federated Malay States Railway (FMSR)—especially the tin mining activity—to open up the country to private enterprise. Several interested parties bade for the coal-mining tender. John Archibald Russell initially tried to bid for mining activity under his firm J. A. Russell and Co. but the bid was awarded to Rawang Federated Malay States Coal Syndicate Ltd instead. The company start mining the coal using a diamond drill and hand boring tools but two years later, the company started to lose interest in Batu Arang after discovering the mine has no commercial value. The company then sold the mining concession to John Archibald Russell in 1913. In the same year, however, the price of rubber decreased globally and many people who had been considering buying shares in rubber starting to lose interest. As a result, Russell had to sell some of his past investments and become a major shareholder of Malayan Collieries Limited with help from his associates on June 20, 1914. Malayan Collieries then appointed J. A. Russell and Co. to become general managers and secretaries, and his company issued $1,500,000 worth of capital, in which $500,000 was the working capital, where it was formed on a basis of coal deposits which estimated to be between 10 and 20 million tons of coal and the coal demand was estimated to be around 200,000 tons per year. The company leased of…

Geography

Batu Arang's climate is classified as tropical. Rainfall in the area is quite significant throughout the year. This climate is Af according to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification. The temperature here averages . The average annual rainfall is . Precipitation is lowest in July, with an average of . The average for November—the wettest month—is . At an average temperature of , May is the hottest month of the year. The coolest month is January, with an average temperature of . Between the driest and wettest months, the difference in precipitation is . Illegal dumping of materials containing toxic waste was discovered on January 15, 2004, and a lawsuit was filed against the responsible parties. Among the toxic materials found were paint, glues and chemicals that are used in the construction industry. Four years later, another waste-dumping issue was discovered when two contractors dumped waste collected from a sewerage processing plant in Puchong into their palm oil estate in Batu Arang and left it to dry and become fertilizer. The waste generated strong odors that affected the lives of the town's residents. Since 2010, flooding has frequently occurred on an annual basis in some parts of town, especially the roundabout, which cut off access to schools, the police station and the fire station. It was caused by the aging drainage system, which had fallen into despair. More complains were filed by residents in 2019. To mitigate the flooding problem, a new drainage system was constructed in February 2020, and was completed in April 2020.

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Excerpted from the corresponding Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA).