Tales of Malaysia's 'most haunted highway'

No sooner than Phase 2 of the East Coast Expressway, connecting Jabor at the Pahang-Terengganu border and Gemuroh in Terengganu, was opened to traffic in January this year, stories about ghostly sightings have started flooding social media.



More popularly referred to as LPT2, the newly opened highway link to the east coast of Malaysia soon gained the infamous title 'haunted highway' after one deadly accident after another started making headlines.

The wife of a Felda settler, Senani Omar, 53 from Felda Neram 2 Kemaman had shared a tale when the car her entire family was travelling in almost crashed when they encountered a white ghostly female apparition swinging from an electronic signboard near the Perasing rest stop on the LPT2.

"Just a few hundred metres from the Perasing rest stop, the car which was being driven by my son Wan Shahdillah Wan Abdullah, 28, neared an overhead electronic signboard and suddenly an apparition appeared to be hanging from the sign which caused my son to swerve and nearly ended up in the ditch by the roadside.

"The road was dark and the sign was not lighted but fortunately there was no oncoming traffic so my son managed to regain control of the car and we drove all the way to the Cheneh toll plaza without stopping," she described the encounter, Sinar Harian reports on November 1.

Another highway user, factory worker Mohd Muradzi Mohd Nawi, 20 also claimed to have sighted a long-haired apparition in white dress on October 17 just hours after a fatal accident involving two brothers occurred at kilometre 273.9 of the LPT2.

"We returned home using the LPT2 but halfway through the journey I saw a long-haired white apparition sitting on the road divider at the Lubuk Batu overpass which is about 8km before the site of the deadly accident hours earlier.

"I could not see the face of the ghostly being as it was dark. I was shivering in fear and repeatedly read out passages from the al-Quran. At that time I glanced at the clock in the car and it showed 3am," he had shared his story in an interview with local malay daily, Sinar Harian.

An accident survivor, Salimah Ghalam, 51, who lost her husband and two children to a highway accident on the LPT2 does not rule out the presence of other-worldly entities along the famous 'haunted highway'.

"I had never travelled on the LPT2 before the tragic accident but my husband and children have used it before. I am still in trauma and dare not venture back on that highway. As a survivor, I cannot rule out that mystical beings caused the accident," she shared.

Most recently, a social media user posted a video recording to Youtube of a ghostly sighting captured by lorry drivers on October 29.

The video footage shows the back of a truck travelling along what appears to be a dark lonely stretch of highway identified in the video posting as the Gerik highway stretch of the East Coast Highway and the audio recording features the conversation between the two lorry drivers sitting in the vehicle travelling behind the truck, recording the supposedly ghostly apparition.

"Can you see it in the camera, bro?

"My god, the hair is so long...is this real? Bro, its white!

"Can you see it in the video camera?

"Yes, I can see it...even her hands I can see! Fuh...the hair is so long.

"You're not scared?

"I see two heads brother!"

Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) Director, Prof Dr Wong Shaw Voon said that from an initial assessment conducted on October 22, the structural and safety aspects of the highway are in good condition.

"If we talk about it from the perspective of uneven road conditions, drivers should take the precautions to follow road instructions and drive slowly and not speed up," he told Bernama in an interview on October 29, dispelling rumours of ghostly sightings causing accidents along the LPT2.

"Other factors included driving over the speed limit in addition to boredom setting in causing drivers to dose off," he added observing that the long straight stretches of highway could be a factor as drivers tend to become complacent and pay less attention.

Since the opening of the expressway, a total of 1,657 accidents with 50 fatalities have been recorded along the 184 km-long stretch from Jabor to Gemuruh. The first five months of 2015 saw a total of 385 accidents with 16 fatalities along stretches that cut through Kemaman, Hulut Terengganu and Kuala Terengganu. Of the total, speeding was determined as the cause for 237 cases while 38 were the result of driver fatigue.

As for the hotspots, most of the fatal accidents tend to occur along KM 370 to 390 between Ajil and Bukit Besi from 12 to 4 pm. As for accidents, it was recorded that a vast majority occurred along KM 250 to 270 along the Jabor and Cheneh stretch from midnight to 6 am, NST reports in July this year.

- mD