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INDEED most Malaysians including our leaders and authorities are at a loss as we witness the tragic landslide that has taken so many lives including young schoolchildren.
It is reminiscent of the Ampang condominium disaster decades ago.
We mourn with the family members of victims.
While the relevant authorities and rescue teams must be commended for their speedy and tireless efforts, Malaysians do also take comfort in the fact that our ministers were quick to take efforts to be present at the tragic site, demonstrating compassion.
I believe that no one foresaw this tragedy in the making and pointing fingers will not take us to a safer, better future either.
Indeed weather patterns are wreaking havoc given the fast-shifting geological and climate effects.
Landslides and floods are set to be a permanent challenge to our nation that has been free from earthquakes and hurricanes/cyclones or even volcanic eruptions.
Hence we need to pay serious, long and short-term attention to how we as a nation will want to tackle floods and landslides. Knee-jerk or crisis response efforts are not good enough.
We need to set up a national high-powered crisis team that will immediately undertake a nationwide risk assessment and perennial monitoring given the country’s decades of indiscriminate development.
This unit can be parked under the defence forces as they have the means, know-how and manpower to tackle floods and landslide crises.
Given the fact that floods and landslides are often subject to the monsoon seasons, the defence forces will be able to economically meet the requirements.
Having a separate non-military task force to manage this need will be uneconomical as it tends to be lackadaisical over time.
We also need to have a central body that wields a strong power and whose learned approval is to be deemed a must for all future and past developments in areas that are susceptible to flooding and landslides.
Enough is enough. The indiscriminate developments of past decades must cease now.
We also need the Education Ministry to revisit standards and compliance policies and bring these to be on par with environmental changes.
Creating safe campsites and mini adventure parks should be a long-term and worthy consideration.
In the 1960s, school scouts had numerous safe and exciting campsites all around the country to spend semester breaks. But today all of these have disappeared in the name of development and profits.
Return safe and creative parks to the urban areas so that school children can be richer in attitudes and environmental knowledge.
The Agriculture Ministry must place environmental development and safety as a compulsory requirement for all agro-industries.
Meanwhile, it is time to streamline our civil service architecture to benefit from a better coordinated, enforced, monitored and maintained development environment.
Last but not least the indiscriminate littering mindset of Malaysians must be put to an end. So too the polluters who continue to defy the loads of environmental laws we have.
We had enough slogans. We had pathetic enforcement for decades.
It is time to make Malaysians behave like other responsible citizens of the civilised world, like Japan for example.
Hopefully our “harapan” government will muster all its powers and determination to reset our future safety. – The Vibes, December 17, 2022
J. D. Lovrenciear reads The Vibes
