ENVIRONMENT: Floods Teach Malaysia Hard Lessons

By Baradan Kuppusamy Reprint | | Print |

Baradan Kuppusamy

Kuala Lumpur, Jan 30 2007 (IPS) - Natural disasters are rare in this generally balmy country and so when devastating floods hit the country as the new year began, they caught victims, rescuers and government officials without a comprehensive disaster preparedness plan.

The disaster which struck in two waves – late December and early January – displaced more than 140,000 people in southern Malaysia, with most of the victims sheltered in poorly prepared relief centres, community halls and schools. At least 23 people died.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, who heads the cabinet committee on natural disasters, the damages to government have been estimated at around 430 million US dollars – although this figure does not include personal and commercial losses.

Available estimates place damages to personal household wealth at 85 million dollars and a further 2.4 billion worth of losses in earnings by industry and the oil palm sector. Some 20,000 hectares of cropland were destroyed and 11,000 houses damaged or destroyed.

Since the southern Johore state, which took the brunt of the floods, is the food-bowl of Malaysia the prices of vegetables, poultry and sea food tripled and even consumers in neighbouring Singapore felt the pinch.

The chaos and ugly scenes at the evacuation centres as food ran out and basic amenities were overwhelmed did not speak well for a country that is regarded among the more affluent in South-east Asia.

In several relief centres – particularly in schools and community halls – people fought over limited cooked food, drinking water and sleeping materials, all of which were in short supply largely because of poor coordination.

‘’It was the country’s worst flood disaster in living memory and we just did not know how to handle it,” said a volunteer with the Malaysian Red Crescent Society who asked not to be named.

‘’We lacked a disaster preparedness plan. We lacked coordination. We had no game plan. Who is to do what and when was missing,” the volunteer, who has expereince working in tsunami-struck Aceh, Indonesia, told IPS.

Angry flood victims promised cash aid not getting it on time added to the misery. “I have not received food, sleeping materials or the cash that the government promised,” said hawker Majid Jantan, 58, whose house was swept away by the floods.

“All my belongings were swept away by the currents,” he told IPS. Not knowing what to do, Jantan who is squatting with his sister in the city. ”I have lost everything. I am old and I don’t what to do.”

Jantan is possibly luckier than the 48,000 victims who are still in evacuation centres with no homes to return to and no family or relatives to fall back on. The state-run Bernama news agency reported on Monday that over 30,000 people were still in sheltered in relief centres in the worst-hit district of Batu Pahat in Johore, where flood water were still receding.

The government has promised 142 dollars in cash per displaced person, soft loans for businesses that were severely damaged and waiver of various fees, but the aid is inadequate and already there is criticism that the distribution is lopsided. “The most vulnerable are not getting as much as they need,” said a volunteer.

Major newspapers and television stations are raising funds but the public response has been surprisingly lukewarm.

As victims pick up the pieces, the blame game has started with the authorities initially citing unprecedented heavy rains of up to 700 mm for the devastating flood. “We were hit without warning,” said Ghani Othman, Johore’s chief minister.

But environmentalists and climatologists say they had issued warnings on numerous occasions that crippling floods and other disasters will happen. These warnings went unheeded.

Some experts blame heavy rainfall for the disaster while environmentalists and weather specialists also see global warming, loss of green cover and excessive, unplanned development as the fundamental causes.

Shrinking forest cover due to rampant unplanned development over the last two decades and the resultant silting up of rivers and inadequate drainage clearly had a role in Johore.

Experts now say that what happened in Johore was a warning for the whole country and have called for an urgent and proper investigation into the causes of the floods and its impact on society.

“This disaster is of our own making. It will visit us again,” said S. M. Idris, president of Friends of Earth, Malaysia. “It is urgent that we end the damage we have inflicted on the environment,” he told IPS. “This is the worst flood disaster in over a 100 years – the authorities were ill prepared.”

Under pressure, the government has responded by ordering a full-scale inquiry.

Opposition lawmakers however want a complete overhaul of the development policies that have devastated the environment and brought the country to its knees.

“There has been rampant and unplanned development of residential, commercial and industrial properties,” said opposition lawmaker and deputy secretary general of the main opposition Democratic Action Party S. Kulasekaran.

“The one-sided development has been going on unimpeded for almost 30 years and without the authorities properly understanding the consequences,” he told IPS after a visit to the flood-hit areas.

“We are paying the price for the previous generation’s foolishness,” he said, urging the setting up of an independent panel to study the reasons behind the flood.

“This disaster is not a one-off thing. It will recur and on a larger scale,” he said. “We must prepare for disasters…we must not only prevent disasters but have a disaster preparedness strategy.”

“We accept the flood is linked to climate change brought about by global warming,” said Razak. “We also need a complete and holistic disaster preparedness strategy in case the country is hit again by similar disasters,” he told reporters this week.