Sarawak flooded? Will they get money from govt like Kelantan did?

Remember back in 2014 when the whole of Malaysia was moved to pour out their heartfelt support for the victims of the Kelantan flood? The flood in 2014 that displaced more than 200,000 people and left 21 people dead across several states along the east coast?

Well, if you haven’t heard, another state is currently in the midst of a very bad flood itself. Looking at the picture below, you’d think it was a picture from Kelantan, but no. It’s actually a picture from Sarawak.

Sarawak actually faces floods annually too. Article like this and this indicate that Sarawak has struggled with flood issues in the past few years. But this year’s flood in particular is pretty bad, possibly their worst in a long time too. 

Areas affected include Kuching, Serian, Samarahan, Padawan, and Bau, just to name a few, and about 1,500 people have been forced to move to flood relief centres. The flood has also claimed the life of one person, Judus Julina, who was 20 years old.

But as the flood waters start to recede, these families will probably be going home to the same things that the Kelantan flood victims went home to. Muddy houses, damaged belongings, and probably in need of a lot of rebuilding, physically and emotionally.

They are gonna need resources to rebuild. And just like how the gomen provided flood relief for Kelantan, the question on some peoples’ minds is how is the gomen gonna help the people of Sarawak?

Is the gomen gonna give money to Sarawak like they gave to Kelantan?

It’s worth noting that after the 2014 Kelantan floods, PM Najib promised to provide victims a total of RM500 million flood relief. The gomen later explained that that this money wasn’t just for Kelantan but flood victims in Terengganu and Pahang as well.

Besides that, they announced they’ve also allocated RM800 million for to rebuild infrastructure like schools, and set aside RM893 million in Budget 2015 for flood mitigation plans (basically, to control flood waters). So total amount given by the gomen in response to the Kelantan flood? RM1.69 billion!!!

But what about the Sarawak flood this time round? Well, the gomen hasn’t actually decided yet. Sarawak minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah, said that the National Disaster and Relief Management Committee (we couldn’t find a website that talks about them specifically, but we know they’re under the National Security Council) will be the ones to decide on that amount.

And if the gomen hasn’t decided who or what they gonna provide money for, why not we take a look at some of the things the gomen should consider before deciding how much money to give to Sarawak?

 

So what does Sarawak need money for?

Let’s look at Kelantan first. But aside from that, it also caused more than RM2 BILLION in property damage.

However, even if no estimate yet has been given for the property damage in Sarawak, the number of people affected are significantly less (1,500 people displaced, as mentioned earlier). Logically, one could say that this means the gomen should give less to Sarawak. But should the number of people affected be the only consideration?

Like we’ve mentioned, the gomen had 3 types of allocations for the east coast floods: Money to help flood victims (cash aid, build homes), money for infrastructure, and budget allocation for flood mitigation. But in the case of Sarawak, there may be more that meets the eye.

Articles like this and this have mentioned that the floods in Sarawak are actually flash floods caused by bad longkangs.

But some of us may be wondering “Isn’t drains part of flood mitigation?”. Actually it seems to be a little different. This article mentions that dealing with flood waters from overflowing rivers is different from floods caused by bad longkangs. In fact it’s also worth mentioning that our gomen actually looks up to the flood mitigation practices in Sarawak, and is looking to implement them in other states, especially the east coast. The problem in Sarawak is more of maintenance.

“The maintenance of the drainage is under the purview of the local council and it appears that they have been slacking in maintaining and also upgrading the system. The occurrence of the floods is directly linked to their inability to take the precautionary steps before it (flooding) happens.” – Julian Tan, Stampin MP, as quoted by Borneo Post

But that’s not the only issue to arise from this flood. The floods actually resulted in quite a number of landslides all over Sarawak. 289 to be exact.

You may have heard of the Sarawak deforestation problem. We’re not gonna discuss it here (although we have discussed deforestation in Malaysia), but that has been said to have led to bad landslides in Sarawak. (Click here for more info on why deforestation leads to landslides.) All the recent floods did was show how severe the situation is.

And guess how many landslides were reported to have happened because of the Kelantan floods? – 2 landslides.

So aside from all the issues the gomen took into consideration for the east coast flood, they also should consider these other Sarawak flood-specific issues too, and then only decide how much to give to Sarawak.

 

Is there a way we can prepare for floods, even these crazy big ones in the future?

When the gomen was criticised for the way they were ill-prepared for the flood in Kelantan, they defended themselves saying that no one could have prepared for such a terrible thing.

Bear in mind that we are dealing with a dynamic force and that no matter how prepared we are there will always be a bigger and more devastating disaster that would test the capability and resources of the country to manage it and that nothing can ever go as planned. – National Security Council, on The Malaysian Insider

So basically,

They said that the floods were abnormal because of factors like how certain flooded places had never been affected before. Consider that the same may be said about this Sarawak flood, about how severe it is this time round, and how no one could have expected such a thing.

But does that mean every time we experience a big flood, we’re gonna be unprepared in some sense?

Maybe we don’t have to. In other countries, they actually set aside money for disasters in their budget BEFORE anything actually happens. The money set aside is generally known as a disaster relief fund. Countries like the US, Australia, and Europe (yes not a country, but their disaster relief fund is for the whole of Europe!) all have some sort of a disaster relief fund.

And if these floods really are so unpredictable, maybe we should start budgeting for these disasters? (The closest thing we have to a fund atm is the National Disaster Trust Fund, which isn’t a fund from the gomen, but set up by the gomen to facilitate donations for floods.) It may not only come in handy for big floods, but all of them since they are capable of causing damage year in and year out, and the gomen would be able to respond faster to floods like in Sarawak right now.

But until that happens, we do still have to help those in need right now. Here’s a few ways you can donate to the victims of the Sarawak floods.

1. East Coast Flood Relief Fund by the Malaysian Red Crescent
2. Misi Bantuan Banjir Sarawak by My Changemakers (an initiative under PKR)

• 6 HEARTBREAKING STORIES FROM KELANTAN, ONE YEAR AFTER THE FLOODS
• 6 WAYS MALAYSIA CAN BE BETTER PREPARED FOR FUTURE FLOODS
• 9 AWESOME FLOOD RELIEF INITIATIVES BY MALAYSIANS