00:10Hi, welcome back to Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our discussion about
00:15climate-related disaster risks. This as the northeast monsoon season has begun and Matt
00:22Malaysia is forecasting several episodes of continuous heavy rain between November and
00:28January. So how prepared are our institutions, our infrastructure and our communities for
00:34increasingly severe weather events? And are we doing enough to reduce disaster risks before they
00:41happen? Well, joining me now to discuss this is Dr. Shuip Rambat, who is the Director of the
00:47Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Centre at the Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology
00:53in UTM. Dr. Shuip, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. So we're in another
00:59northeast monsoon season. Can I ask you what some of the biggest disaster risks you're worried about
01:06or that we should be anticipating over the next few months? Okay, thank you, Melissa. For me, it is
01:15very, very difficult questions because disaster is not cannot be predicted. But if I need to answer
01:25these questions, I would prefer to the unprepared low areas because these unprepared low areas usually
01:33have less attention and some of the community are not aware what is the disasters going to come to
01:44them. It's very risky. I can say it's very risky to be in that particular area, to be in the
01:53unprepared low risk area. Okay, so Dr. Shuip, can we actually plan for extreme weather phenomenon and
02:03climate-induced disasters? I'm just wondering how much can we plan? What are the limits of what we can
02:09plan plan for and other things that we just simply cannot plan for? Yes, we can plan but bear in
02:20mind
02:20because not all planning can be workable. What I mean is the plan are not guaranteed to work. Okay,
02:32for example, most of our infrastructures have been upgraded accordingly because it refers to the
02:43average recurrent intervals. Okay, maybe the sewage that we have today is not really
02:53capable to be capable to capture the water, the floods. So we need to upgrade that one so we can
03:01plan.
03:04What else we can do is I think the private, public-private partnership between the government and the
03:16agency, the private agency, I think they work well together. If you notice, there is a several
03:28program running between the community and the NGO where they develop the CBDRM, Community Based Research
03:37Management. Okay, I think in Johor, in Selangor, Kelantan, Kuala Tegano, Penang, Sabah and Sarawak,
03:45they start planning this by giving a knowledge to the community. Hopefully, this knowledge can be
03:53used during the disaster event. Okay, so that's at the community level but let's talk about the
04:00national level, the federal level and also maybe at the state government level. When we think about how
04:05disasters happen usually in Malaysia, it hits multiple states at once. Can our disaster management
04:14structure, can we cope with simultaneous disasters that happen across multiple states that happen all
04:21at once? I'm curious to know what gaps you're concerned about with dealing with multiple disasters at once.
04:30Okay, the devastating December 2021 flood which impacted 11 states simultaneously exposed severe
04:39limitation in managing concurrent disasters, especially the logistic bottleneck.
04:44NADMA recently noted a stark reality standard rescue boat hold about 10 people. In dense housing is there of 1
04:52,000
04:53residents. A sudden flight create an immediate insurmountable mathematical deficit of rescue asset.
04:59This will be a problem because this will be a problem because during this multi-state, the disaster
05:10concurrently happened. So it's the need to be more prepareable and more designable plan or designable
05:28plan that can help this community. That's why we are in 2026, we are pursuing to the CBDRM. So the
05:42community can upgrade their skills and what we call it, fight back. After all, it's about oneself.
05:53Okay. Well, talk to me a little bit about what communities can do. When we think about prevention and
06:02preparedness at a community level, you mentioned a bit earlier, Dr. Shuip, you said that you're worried
06:08about the unprepared low areas, the risk of flooding there. So what does that look like at a community
06:17at a household level? How can people be empowered to be prepared for climate-induced disaster risks?
06:26Okay. During the CBDRM course, which was conducted by NGO and other partners with other NADMA partners,
06:35we call it Rakan NADMA. So they provide this CBDRM training. What they provide is they provide
06:43how the community, how the community going to react during the disaster. First of all, they need to
06:49recognize which area they need to go and which equipment they need to pack. Okay. Food, for example,
07:02important documents, important documents and what else, anything that 70, they need to prepare for 70
07:11hours go back documents. So I think you can go for the NADMA website. They have listed there what
07:21elements or what item need to be in that go back. Okay. So rather than preparing themselves, they also need
07:31to be
07:32communicate it to each other. Because during the disasters, everybody have their own role. So we have to
07:42play our role. Okay. Dr. Xu, can I just ask you, so one of the, I think, most difficult aspects
07:49of disaster
07:50management is actually getting people to evacuate before conditions become dangerous. Is that, is that an
07:57accurate assessment? How good are we at getting Malaysians to evacuate when, before the, before it gets too
08:08risky? Okay. Uh, NADMA already, uh, uh, advice, uh, in 2026, uh, they need to, uh, aware of this, uh,
08:19weather, uh, where they
08:21can find it in, uh, mad Malaysia. For example, my, uh, my info banjir. So, uh, uh, the, uh, grass
08:31period that, uh,
08:32NADMA raised that, uh, within, uh, three, three days of every raining, they need to evacuate their particular
08:41areas. So hopefully with these statements, everyone, uh, aware about it. Okay. Uh, and again, uh,
08:50in nowadays, we have a lot of applications that are available on internet. So for example, we have
08:57My Cuarta, Info Banjir, and also Windy.com. So, uh, they can, uh, monitor their locations via this, uh,
09:06website. Okay. Do you have any, um, last words of advice for our audience today of how to make sure
09:13that we are
09:14prepared for any disasters that may come our way in the coming months?
09:20Okay. Uh, so I think, uh, we cannot negotiate with the changing climate. We cannot stop the rain,
09:26but we can absolutely control how we prepare, how we adapt, and how we respond. Building a flood
09:32resilient Malaysia is a shared responsibility, and the window to prepare is right now, before the water
09:39rise. Definitely. Dr. Sheep, thank you so much for being on the show with me today. Dr. Sheep Rambat from
09:44the
09:45Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology in UTM wrapping up this episode of Consider This.
09:51I'm Melissa Idris, signing off for the evening. Thank you so much for watching, and good night.
09:57Yeah.
10:05I'm Melissa Idris, signing off for the evening.
10:05I'm Melissa Idris.
10:05I'm Melissa Idris.
10:06I'm Melissa Idris.
10:07I'm Melissa Idris.
10:08I'm Melissa Idris.
10:11You
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