Connexion: Caught off guard by alternating flood-drought twins
By Joachim Ng
The collapse of the 77-metre-long Old Slim River Bridge from Jalan Slim River to Behrang Hulu following heavy rainfall that caused a water surge last month attests to the growing danger to lives from climate change and Malaysia’s unpreparedness for it.
Tragically one life was lost in Kuala Lumpur when the pavement on a busy street suddenly caved in causing a pedestrian to fall into an 8-metre-deep sinkhole. According to shop owners, defects started surfacing just months after the pavements had been upgraded. A week after that, another sinkhole appeared some 50 metres away.
One section of a main road in Fair Park, Ipoh, was closed to traffic late last month for repair works after cracks and potholes appeared following soil erosion at a nearby embankment.
In Petaling Jaya, a 3-metre-wide sinkhole appeared in a road near a well-patronised shopping mall last month. Fortunately, authorities quickly put cones around it. Also last month, a pavement drain and the ground around it collapsed in Kg Kerinchi, Kuala Lumpur. A burst water pipe in Sentul created a gaping hole on a main road last April.
How well are infrastructural contractors supervised? Do they have standard operating procedures and key performance indicators? In Kepong and Segambut, Kuala Lumpur, residents spotted potholes and subsidence after a contractor had laid underground pipes to supply water to new development projects. This is a perennial complaint about infrastructural contractors almost everywhere in Malaysia: they stand accused of doing shoddy work.
A nationwide comprehensive infrastructure inspection should have been planned as a disaster-prevention measure, and all contractors who cheat by using low-quality construction materials must be delicensed. But we say that’s not the Malaysian way.
Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye, a renowned son of Ipoh, has for years lamented the absence of a maintenance culture. No one took heed of the warner, and perhaps he will continue to be ignored. It is to our detriment, as neglect of preventive infrastructural maintenance puts many lives at risk.
Pavements and potholes, parks and playgrounds aren’t the only areas for concern. What about the row of terraced houses where you stay? Is there a monsoon drain behind? Were there standard operating procedures that were complied with by every contractor during construction of the housing estate to prevent underground soil erosion?
Is your housing estate built on limestone and sand formations? These formations are susceptible to erosion which could lead to sinkholes and ground subsidence. Continuous heavy rainfall, poor drainage, and badly maintained infrastructure might result in the ground collapsing under your feet.
Is there neighbourhood governance empowering residential and commercial ratepayers to exercise grassroot-level authority and on-the-spot supervision? Our column has repeatedly pointed out over the years that this missing dimension of government is a deadly serious bungle that no politician wants to rectify.
Tan Sri Lee, as chairman of the Alliance for a Safe Community, has called for a high-level committee to be established under the Prime Minister’s Department. Such a committee, if set up, must also examine Malaysia’s preparedness for the climate change disaster rising over the horizon.
Late June, Simpang Pulai assemblyman Wong Chai Yi said after several housing estates in the constituency were flooded: “The effects of climate change have been quite extreme lately, and there are areas that are finding it difficult to cope, particularly the occurrences of flash floods.”
Just a month later in late July, Perak saw cloud-seeding operations carried out over three days to increase water levels for agricultural and domestic use in the Bukit Merah and Muda Dams. Throughout the dry season, padi farmers and livestock breeders suffered losses. Right up to August, just a month ago, extreme heat and dry conditions left rivers high and dry causing sandbars to form.
What Malaysia and the rest of the world are seeing is more extreme wet and dry events alternating in rapid fashion because of global warming. When the heat goes up, water quickly vanishes as more of it evaporates into the atmosphere. Warm air can hold more water vapour and so downpours get heavier.
Are we ready for the floods in November and December? They are less than two months away. Environmentalists are certain that flooding will become more severe as climate change progresses. Do we have workable flood mitigation projects? The USM River Engineering and Urban Drainage Research Centre believes that most of our current flood mitigation projects are based on rainfall data over too short a span of years.
Do we have vast floodplains or land alongside rivers flowing through urban areas to accommodate overflowing water? How about the state of our drains in cities? As everyone knows, they resemble trash bins with everything dumped into them. Is there regular maintenance to clear drains? This is yet another maintenance issue that no councillor has bothered with.
Floods caused massive losses amounting to RM7.9 billion between 2021 and 2023, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid told Parliament in July. Two weeks ago, a two-hour downpour in George Town saw motorists stuck on roads for hours as they dared not drive through the floodwaters. The Ayer Itam dam level rose to 31.2% from a dangerous level of 27.6%.
Just two weeks earlier on Aug 20, the Penang Water Supply Corporation had urged residents in the state to cut down on their water usage because of low levels of water at the dams. It said the low effective capacities of dams in the state constituted a threat to the water supply of close to 75,000 consumer accounts.
In the Klang Valley’s Kepong town a week ago, the severest flood in living memory brought on by an enormously high volume of rainfall in a short span of time caused losses of RM20,000 to each of many shop-owners. Community activists said the town’s infrastructure is not capable of handling extreme weather conditions.
Erratic weather throughout Malaysia has thrown padi planting and harvest schedules out of kelter. The volatile fluctuations between extreme heat and sudden rainfall affect crop maturation and yield that will eventually result in a critical supply shortage. Flood depth in rice parcel areas including Perak has been estimated to increase by 25% over the coming decades.
Records show that between 2017 and 2021, Malaysia suffered damage totalling RM128.8 million due to floods, and RM21.6 million was lost to droughts. One season we have too much rain and the next season a bit too much sun.
Nowhere in the world is the situation better. On one day last July, the South Korean city of Gunsan saw the heaviest rainfall in living memory, with rivers overflowing, roads flooded, and residents struggling in waist-high water. Also in July, one day’s rainfall in northern Japan caused rivers to burst their banks washing away bridges and cars.
The same month had central and northern China going through the worst drought on record, while southern China experienced torrential rains, floods and landslides. It led scientists to declare that China will increasingly experience periods of heavier rainfall, as well as longer periods of dryness in the coming years.
Devastating floods in Bangladesh three weeks ago forced almost half a million people to take refuge in shelters. Despite water being everywhere, the critical shortage of clean water for drinking served as a reminder to the world of the relentless impact of extreme weather events and the climate crisis. In Brazil, more than half a million people were displaced after catastrophic floods hit the nation in May.
In the next article, we will propose a package of mass-scale efforts requiring the participation of every household and all but small business enterprises to mitigate the calamitous effects of the alternating flood-drought twin disasters that now plaque us yearly.
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Ipoh Echo
