Uggah with deputy state secretary Datu Jaul Samion (left) and Nadma director-general Datuk Abdul Rashid Harun (right) before the State Disaster Management Committee meeting at Wisma Bapa Malaysia yesterday. — Photo by Chimon Upon
KUCHING: Residents of divisions with fire prone areas have been asked to take precautions given that the Meteorological Department had anticipated slightly less rain this year.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said when there is less rain, the weather would be hot and probability of fires occurring would be high.
“With that phenomenon, we have alerted the residents of fire prone areas, for example in Kuala Baram area so that whatever pre-emptive measures that should be done, should be done to prepare for any eventualities,” he told reporters after chairing the State Disaster Management Committee meeting at Wisma Bapa Malaysia here yesterday.
Uggah stated that preparations, including maintenance of government assets on the ground, should be done now so that the authorities will be ready to minimise the impact when an incident happens.
“Like in Miri, we have tubewells and towers there, so make sure these things are maintained and so on.”
Meanwhile, Uggah said the state was quite fortunate so far this year because flood incidents were less intense compared to previous years.
“We thank God for the good weather and we hope it will continue to be like that.”
He added: “Another feature that is very prominent for this year is that the flood mainly occurred in Miri, the interior Baram basin, right to the interior and some of the interior areas in Sibu, Miri and Limbang.”
He said this shows that the flood areas are shifting, which will be a challenging issue to the government to address to ensure that the authorities have sufficient assets, time as well as timely delivery of government services.
Uggah said no casualties were reported during the floods between Nov 25 last year and March 17 this year and the number of families affected that were assisted by the state Welfare Department was 3,991 comprising 26,903 victims from 194 areas.
“A total of 111 schools were affected during the flood incidents that involved 9,936 students. We have also channelled assistance to 69 schools with the total allocation of RM1.8 million to assist them in replacing the furniture and facilities that were spoilt.
“Nevertheless, in spite of the challenges, I must express our appreciation to all the agencies, departments including the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) which had been cooperating very well on the ground. Everybody tried their best to solve the problem and reached the victims even though they were very far in the interior.
“We also thank Fire and Rescue Department because they have radio amateur in the interior where they helped us to communicate with the operations room when there were some incidents of flood.”
He said the state has received a proportion of the compensation (wang ehsan) and the money will be allocated to the flood victims in a few areas in Sarawak later.
Uggah also said that the early preparation by the state had paid dividends in terms of the government agencies’ ability to respond to all the flood incidents in the areas involved.
He said an additional agenda during the meeting was to obtain feedback from the Residents on the status of the various evacuation centres in their area to prepare for another wet weather towards the end of the year or probably next year.
“The objective is to assess the capacity of the evacuation centres in terms of service requirement if there is a need arising. We want to do it early so that we are fully equipped with all the facilities to make sure that the victims will be taken care of, minimise their difficulties and problems at time of flood.”
Uggah said another meeting will be held probably in one or two months’ time to review the reports from the agencies involved, including from the Residents.