File photo of Amphibious Rigid Inflatable Boat – one of the assets to be deployed by Bomba in the event of flooding.
Nor Hisham Mohammad
SIBU: The state Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) is prepared for possible flooding next month.
Its director Nor Hisham Mohammad said yesterday that the department has put on standby 1,181 fire fighters backed up by 43 teams of volunteer fire brigades (PBS) with 2,100 members.
“In addition, Bomba has 46 aluminium boats, six fibre boats, three Kevlar and 1 Amphibious Rigid Inflatable Boat (ARIB) for water transportation – 18 lorries (three and five tonnes), three buses, 71 ‘4 x 4’ vehicles and 14 Urvan vans, PBS’ 19 vehicles for land transportation – two helicopters for flood monitoring, delivery of food supplies and medevac purposes,” said Nor Hisham
He further disclosed that there are 419 lifejackets and 55 units of Scuba set.
“State Bomba is ready to face any eventuality of flooding next month. All the necessary preparation has been done,” Nor Hisham told The Borneo Post yesterday when asked on the department’s preparation on possible flooding next month.
He said their manpower and assets are spread across seven zones in Sarawak, comprising of 29 fire stations.
The seven zones are – zone 1 (Kuching), zone 2 (Samarahan), zone 3 (Sri Aman), zone 4 (Sibu), zone 5 (Bintulu), zone 6 (Miri) and zone 7 (Limbang).
“Out of the 1,181 fire fighters, 1,137 are (fire) station personnel, 30 operation room officers and 14 zone personnel. A total of 394 fire fighters will be on a 12 hour (shift), while 590 will work round-the-clock,” he revealed.
Meanwhile, according to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, all State Disaster Management Committees (SDMC) and Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) nationwide would be on standby to deal with flooding.
Shahidan had said that the government is ready to tackle extreme floods that are expected to occur throughout the country by next month.
He said based on the forecast given by the Meteorological Department, several episodes of heavy rainfall is expected in November. Announcements would be made from time to time.
Shahidan also called on all rescue teams throughout the country to be ready to be deployed to flood prone areas without waiting for emergency calls from the people.