KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 23 — Khamarrul Azahari Razak, director of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Centre (DPPC) has said that the disaster early warning system (EWS) in this country is weak and fails to detect disasters early such as the major floods that are happening now.

This, he said has resulted in the country suffering RM36 billion in losses every year with more than 70,000 people being victims of floods at the moment.

He told Malay daily Utusan Malaysia that the EWS system in Malaysia is still insufficient and the flood risk map has not been extended to the community level.

He said a better and more comprehensive EWS system, can help reduce up to half of the recorded economic losses.

"The number of disaster victims can be reduced to a lesser extent compared to what is currently happening, involving more than 70,000 victims who had to be moved to temporary evacuation centres (PPS),” he was quoted as saying.

Khamarrul said flood risk mapping refers to the stage of preparing hazard, fragility and disaster risk maps using advanced geospatial technology, hydrological-hydraulic modelling of water flow with climate change scenarios, damage assessment and determination of flood overflow impact levels.

He said the lack of flood risk maps occurs mainly in the East Coast area and so far, the maps are only used by technical agencies without being widely distributed to communities in flood risk areas.

"There are maps made by the Irrigation and Drainage Department (JPS), but they are too technical to be understood by ordinary people and difficult to translate into community-level actions.

"The flood risk map will show which areas will be flooded and the impact. It needs to be improved due to changes in climate, land use, geomorphology and local anthropogenic activities. With a map of danger, fragility and flood risk, land use planning that is more sensitive to the risk of future floods can be made better,” he said.

Khamarrul added that the lack of flood risk maps resulted in the community lacking preparation or action including coordination made without real data or information, including the development of new residential and industrial areas in vulnerable locations.

In the meantime, Khamarrul said structured mitigation measures through flood mitigation plan (RTB) projects need to be continued in a targeted, periodic and impactful manner and give a positive impact on vulnerable communities.

"The country’s EWS needs to be improved where every warning is made based on forecast data that is observed and modelled at the local level, and information is disseminated based on the calculated impact and uses various digital dissemination platforms so that action is taken quickly and targeted.

"Malaysia has not been able to provide accurate, precise and targeted disaster forecasts even though we have invested as much as RM500 million for the National Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (PRABN) at JPS,” he said.