Learning lessons from extreme, unexpected weather events

Paying the price of climate change: Families with infants and children being taken to safety from flats in flooded Taman Sri Muda, Seksyen 25, Shah Alam. — IZZRAFIQ ALIAS/The Star

MALAYSIA is usually prepared for the seasonal flood occurrences on the East Coast of the peninsula with the normal monsoons at this time of the year. However, what was rather unexpected was the massive floods that hit especially the Klang Valley most seriously this time around, due to a weather phenomenon called a tropical depression in the region and the effects of super-typhoon Rai that passed by as it hit the Philippines.

It is true that rainfall was unusually high in parts of the country, but what this shows is that we must prepare for such unexpected events which are likely to happen more often with greater frequency due to the adverse impacts of climate change.