KUALA LUMPUR – The National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA) did not function well in managing the recent floods.
Geostrategy Expert, Assoc. Prof Dr Azmi Hassan said that the agency has been fully entrusted to manage disasters, including floods, however, it did not take place.
“Many blamed the National Security Council (MKN) but it should be handled by NADMA.
“The structure is still the same, at the district level, state and federal. If there is any disaster, an action committee will be set up and they will solve the problem first, if they cannot do so, it will be brought to the state level and so on.
“It has been laid out nicely on papers but it did not turn into reality. I can say that the agency was inefficient,” said the panellist of SKOP MG.
During the ‘Is Malaysia Ready to Face Disasters’ forum, Azmi confessed that Malaysia is still unable to manage the matter despite it has been facing it for a long time.
“We heard that the help was late in several areas and it should not happen.
“There was no preparedness and we still see the communications problem between the top guns when the victims needed help as soon as possible,” he said.
Citing the flood related deaths in Taman Sri Muda, Shah Alam, Azmi said that there should be a post-flood operation, however, there was none.
“I haven’t heard any agency doing house to house checks after the flood. This is important as we would know the situation of the victims. I hope that this can be managed immediately as the flood or such disaster would happen in the future and the same problem would repeat,” he said.
Admitting the communications failure between the agency and the people, Azmi said that the people did not receive any warning.
“We knew that the Malaysian Meteorological Department has shared about the weather and heavy downpour warnings, however, I did not receive any Short Messaging System (SMS) on flood from NADMA nor MKN.
“They were only focussed on the pandemic (Covid-19) when flood is also a huge problem,” he said.
According to him, although they could not predict the continuous heavy rain, flood, however, was nothing new to Malaysia.
“Information should be channelled properly. There was also no post-flood warning.
“For example, many people were stranded in their vehicles in Kuala Lumpur for five to six hours. They should be allowed to make a U-turn.
“When we are on a highway, there will be no oncoming vehicle from the other side as the road has been shut off. Once again, I emphasise that the problem came from instructions,” he said.
Azmi also questioned the non-functioning structure of the agency. Clearly, there were flaws and would they carry on with it or take heed from this disaster to face the future? -MalaysiaGazette
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