IF there is a lesson to be learnt from the worst floods to have hit the Klang Valley over the past weekend, it is that all the stakeholders should relook at how they can better handle such natural disasters in the future, experts said.

They said with better reception of early warnings of predicted floods, the painful price and trauma that the country and its citizens have to bear would be much less.

Universiti Malaya’s Department of Geography Honorary Prof Azizan Abu Samah said Selangor and Kuala Lumpur were caught off guard by the floods, unlike the east coast states.

He said the authorities, public and media in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur have not been trained to handle such disasters better.

“Selangor and Kuala Lumpur were not used to massive flooding, compared with Kelantan and Pahang,” he said.

“The people there are used to tackling the situation, with the authorities knowing when to activate their relief machinery quickly.”

The meteorologist said people in the Klang Valley had not been warned of the downpour while many rivers were already at danger levels on December 16.

“Floods are common in Malaysia. It is only a matter of where they will occur. Normally, it’s on the east coast,” the Academy of Sciences Malaysia fellow said.

He believed the magnitude of damage could be prevented if there were better preparations as the weather patterns had already indicated a storm was heading this way.

“It’s a disaster because there was no preparation. Observing the continuous heavy rain, cars could have been prevented from parking at the basements and people could have been vacated from the lower ground,” he said.

Azizan also said the government website on flood information was also jammed in some instances, after experiencing heavy digital traffic over the weekend.

“The website is also not secure, so anyone could launch a cyberattack on it,” he said.

Weak disaster management

The Organisation for the Preservation of Natural Heritage Malaysia (Peka) said the country’s emergency and disaster management was poor.

Peka president Shariffa Sabrina Syed Akil said the mechanism that was purportedly in place did not measure up until the floods were already at their heights.

“Call centres were set up, but where were the rescue teams?” the environmental activist told The Malaysian Insight.

“There should have been dozens of boats and hundreds of rescuers in the flooded locations at the first sight of rising water levels.”

She said at the height of the crisis, calls from the distress to the fire and rescue department, civil defence and the police were not answered.

Utility companies were also not able to reach damaged stations to carry out repairs or reroute utility services, she said.

“The emergency and disaster management of the states needs to be seriously looked at and improved before the flood of half a century or a century hits,” she said.

“Imagine what would have happened if the rain clouds had stayed on for just a few more days.”

Shariffa suggested more community-managed disaster councils be formed with financial support and training from the government.

Her justification is that those at “ground zero” helping the affected is much faster.

“The ministers and politicians should commission universities to devise better disaster management protocols and test them,” she said.

“We have the expertise in our universities to run studies and advise the government.

“Currently, they come in after the disasters have occurred and explain how the situation could have been managed better.”

The floods also evidently showed that environmental management must be prioritised, Shariffa said.

“Allow nature to become the buffer to soften damage caused by weather patterns brought about global warming and its follow-up climate change disasters,” she added.

Grassroots were champions

Ecologist Lee Jo Kien also recognised that much of the early aid and rescue efforts for flood victims in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur were by the grassroots.

“While this demonstrates the courage of ordinary Malaysians rising to the occasion, it also reveals the lack of disaster preparedness and resilience against such calamities in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur,” he said.

The lead analyst of Tropical Rainforest Conservation & Research Centre and People for Peat said quicker response – evacuations, aid and rescue effort – would have mitigated the impact on affected areas.

“We must be more prepared in anticipation of worsening, unpredictable conditions from climate change in the coming years,” he told The Malaysian Insight. – December 21, 2021.