Rain, rain won’t go away

That’s because global warming will unleash even more violent storms and heavy downpour and we had better be prepared for it.

SO much for my plan to write a perky last column for 2021 in the hope of spreading a little festive cheer amid the year-long overcast of gloom and doom.

Who would have guessed it would get gloomier and doomier just before Christmas?

For sure, no one in government did, except maybe the folks at the Malaysian Meteorological Department (better known as MetMalaysia) whose boss, Muhammad Helmi Abdullah, said they had sent out storm warnings and alerts since Dec 11. This was in response to criticism that his department had failed to provide warnings or give updated information on Typhoon Rai and Tropical Depression 29 that caused us so much grief.

Somehow most of us missed the warnings, possibly because they were announced on the department’s website and, according to Muhammad Helmi, “The latest information about the low pressure system and Typhoon Rai was also announced on TV1 twice daily at 8am through the Selamat Pagi Malaysia programme and at 5pm by weather presenters during the Berita Wilayah news.

Is that why we all missed it? I mean who watches regular old TV anymore?

According to security and risk management platform, Crisis24, MetMalaysia officials had issued a red danger (the highest level on a three-tier scale) continuous rain warning for southern Terengganu and north-eastern Pahang, an orange severe continuous rain warning for Kelantan, the rest of Terengganu, and northern and eastern Pahang, and a yellow alert for continuous rain for Kedah, Perlis, Penang, Perak, and western and central Pahang states through Dec 17.

But, eh, nothing for Selangor?

To be fair, weather predictions are very tricky. That’s because, as Accuweather meteorologist Brett Rossio tells popsci.com, “To determine the weather, we use, among other things, a series of equations to analyse raw data, such as dew point, temperature, wind and barometric pressure.

“But that process neglects variables that are difficult to quantify, like the amount of moisture coming off the surface of the Earth at any given time in a specific location. Too much evaporation can sometimes turn a cloudy afternoon into a thunderstorm.

“I’ve learned that even the best models are just tools; sometimes you have to pop your head out the window and look up.”

I didn’t have to do that. When it began to rain heavily on Dec 17 without stopping for almost 48 hours, I knew, like many others, there would be floods. We just didn’t know how bad it would get.

We soon found out through social media. Selangor was the hardest hit. Like other states, the nation’s most populous one had experienced floods before but not on such a widespread scale and severe magnitude. We are told it was a once-in-a-century event.

And the government was caught flat-footed. I won’t wade into the already ferocious storm that’s lashing out at the government’s poor response before and after.

The first-hand accounts from the flood victims and volunteer aid groups carry a lot more weight than an unaffected armchair critic like me who can only empathise and donate to the relief efforts.

However, I do want to say my low opinion of several politicians, including a few in the Cabinet, has sunk even lower, something I did not think possible. All that posturing and pretending to contribute and help in clean-up efforts for the sake of self-serving photo ops confirms how little sincerity they have and the substandard quality of their fawning aides.

What I want to draw attention to is the inescapable fact that climate change is indeed upon us, despite our Environment and Water Minister’s blithe denial. Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said he wasn’t invited to the 2021 Leaders’ Climate Summit because Malaysia was among the few countries that was not affected by climate change brought about by global warming. Woah!

In my June 27, 2018, column titled “Can we weather this hot topic?” (online at bit.ly/star_topic), I reported that the world is experiencing more thunderstorms because Earth’s surface temperature has gone up so much in the last 150 years. Greater heat evaporates more water vapour into the atmosphere which fuels storms.

Indeed, we weren’t the only nation that got drenched so badly. Wild weather and massive floods occurred in many countries around the globe in the last few months, especially December.

We were so shell-shocked that we barely noticed how Typhoon Rai devastated neighbouring Philippines on Dec 16.

More than three million people were affected by one of the worst typhoons in five decades there, according to the Red Cross. Vietnam, too, has been experiencing severe floods since November while unusually high tides affected the coastal areas of Papua New Guinea. Coastal flooding was reported on several South Pacific islands around the same time.

Floods have also been reported in Brazil, Iraq, Ireland and Spain. In South Sudan, more than 835,000 people in eight states were affected by the worst floods in 60 years. China was also flood-hit several times this year, such as in its northern province of Shanxi, where heavy rains in October killed 15 people and decimated 19,000 buildings.

We Malaysians have always felt ours was a lucky country with its strategic location just outside the Pacific Ring of Fire, sparing us from earthquakes, active volcanoes and typhoons. We only had to brace for monsoon rains, which was a year-end event in my childhood.

But if we go by what’s happening globally today, unpredictable flood-causing heavy rainfall will be a common occurrence in the years ahead. Flooding already accounts for a third of the average annual economic losses caused by natural disasters worldwide, according to phys.com.

Thus, our government, regardless of which party is in power, must prepare for that, with no discrimination against any state.

We have proven we can mitigate Kuala Lumpur’s flood woes with the SMART tunnel, the world’s first dual function tunnel used for stormwater management and as a road. But more must be done, and we can learn from others.

As Cecilia Tortajada and Asit K. Biswas from Singapore’s Institute of Water Policy write in a commentary for channelnewsasia.com, Tokyo is a good example of having world-class anti-flood systems with its 10 underground reservoirs and three flood tunnels which took 12 years and US$2bil (RM8.4bil) to build.

They add, “In the face of (climate) change, cities in Europe, Australia, Japan, the United States and Canada have developed flood-mitigation plans that have become essential tools for land-use, which help governments, industries, developers and populations to prepare for and respond to flood emergencies.”

Right now, our leaders are consumed by the nearly two-year-long pandemic and have dropped the ball on many other urgently important issues.

But what we have for floods is simply inadequate and needs reviewing. For example, Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari said the state’s drainage system was designed to cope with 100mm of water over a month and not the 400mm that poured down over two days.

Flood mitigation may not be as sexy as a high speed rail link or 5G wireless technology but its need is clear for all to see now.

We must go beyond rescue boats and evacuation centres. We need an advance warning system and must willingly invest in super-intelligent and innovative stormwater management infrastructure for vulnerable areas, especially our cities, that may take years and billions to build. And it must be a commitment that remains intact no matter who governs in Putrajaya.

Osaka is building a US$3.2bil (RM13.4bil) flood facility that is scheduled for full completion in 2044. But it has already proven its worth: the facility has saved the city US$1.3bil (RM5.4bil) in clean-up costs after unusually long rainy seasons.

If we do anything less, our country and citizens will pay an even higher price in lost lives and costly damage repair, replacement and rebuilding every time the skies open up with a vengeance.

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.