KUALA LUMPUR – Instead of having to give RM1,000 to each family affected by the flood disaster, the federal government could have allocated RM100 million much earlier to upgrade Klang’s drainage system, said MP Charles Santiago.
He said now the federal government has to shell out flood aid as well as another RM100 million for the repair of homes and infrastructure nationwide.
“The RM1,000 aid and RM100 million infrastructure allocation are not enough at all. Klang has 1.5 million people and a huge number of industries as well as households, so I don’t think it’s going to be helpful at all.
“The Selangor government also needs to be more proactive in finding solutions to our problems as opposed to just responding,” he told BFM Radio this morning.
He said that Klang’s drainage system can only manage around 40 to 60mm of rainfall while a month ago, there was 192mm of rainfall in three hours.
“There is a trend emerging as heavy rain is recorded in a short period of time. This calls for an urgent need to upgrade and rethink our drainage system, especially in Klang.
On Friday, there was 700mm of rainfall, while Saturday saw more than 1,000mm (of rain distribution). This is unprecedented. We have never had such rain. It is the worst rain and worst flooding in 50 years.”
Santiago also called for better coordination between state and federal governments during an emergency response.
“The government’s response is highly inadequate as the preparedness levels should have been better. The people should have been warned earlier of the heavy rainfall so they could have been prepared.
“I tried to reach out to some of them (government agencies) and I wasn’t very happy with the response that I got. In fact, it was quite clear they were overstretched.
“They were doing their job but they didn’t have people on the ground to respond to the huge disaster in front of them. So I proposed to some authorities to bring reinforcements from outside of Selangor.
“I also tweeted about Klang Utama and the need for urgent army intervention. I was very pleased that the defence minister responded to that.
One of their senior people also called me to tell me that a meeting will take place this morning to see to the cleaning of Klang Utama. We will ask them to help those in Taman Sri Muda.”
He said the focus is now on Sri Muda, although Klang Utama was most affected earlier, adding that it is a huge loss from a financial standpoint as well as a challenging cleaning process.
After 15 hours of rain last Friday, it triggered flash floods in many parts of the district as water rushed into homes and factories as well as triggering a power outage in Port Klang.
Roads and highways into Klang were also inundated, causing a massive traffic jam of stalled vehicles.
The next day, many parts of central Malaysia saw devastating flash floods and landslides, affecting thousands.
As a response, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that every family affected would be given RM1,000 in cash aid and RM100 million for housing and infrastructure repair. – The Vibes, December 20, 2021
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