Malaysia's floods drive pleas for climate change action

KUALA LUMPUR • The damaged furniture and mud-caked walls left by floodwaters have been replaced or cleaned in Ms Elizabeth Chong's family home, but lost forever are old photos and documents that gave a precious glimpse into her ancestors' lives.

On the street in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur where Ms Chong's family have lived for almost a century, residents have coped with regular flooding for decades. But nothing prepared them for the devastation caused by rising waters late last year.

Ms Chong, who lives in a two-storey house with her disabled aunt and retired mother, was among more than 120,000 people displaced by heavy rains and severe flooding in mid-December and early January across Malaysia.

"We knew that it was raining constantly and we expected a flood, but not to that extent," the 22-year-old told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "The doors burst open. Water came in like crazy. All of a sudden it was chest high," said Ms Chong, an administrator for a pharmaceutical company and a part-time student.

Like many South-east Asian nations, Malaysia suffers regular flooding during its annual monsoon season, but such widespread destruction is rare in the country's richest states, including the capital and neighbouring Selangor.

Urban areas across the region - already struggling to cope with booming populations, rapid urbanisation and crumbling infrastructure - now face heightened threats from climate change-driven adverse weather events.

Malaysia's recent floods - some in areas once considered immune to such damage - caused nearly US$1.5 billion (S$2.08 billion) in losses and were described by government officials as a "once-every-100-years" weather event.

But victims say the country's response to the floods was often slow and inadequate, and green groups are now calling on the government to introduce laws to cut climate changing emissions and boost emergency response and adaptation efforts.

"Floods occur every year somewhere, at some time in the country," said Mr Salleh Mohd Nor, a former president and senior adviser at the Malaysian Nature Society.

"To say that this (flood) is one-in-100-years is something I doubt... With climate change, the rains will be more frequent and torrential," he added.

The last time deep floodwaters entered Ms Chong's terraced house - which sits near a river and in the shadow of a huge mall and fancy hotels - was in 2000. Renovations to the house over the years included adding another storey, raising the structure by 0.6m, and installing a flood barrier. The authorities also completed construction of a key drainage and road tunnel in 2007 to guard against flash floods in the capital and help ease traffic congestion.

But after more than three days of near-constant rain in late December, floodwaters rose in about three hours from a trickle in Ms Chong's home to touching the ceiling of the ground floor.

She and her family were forced to seek safety on the dry upper floor where, in darkness after the electricity was cut, she began frantically calling emergency services on her mobile phone.

Fire crews eventually used a boat to rescue Ms Chong's family from the balcony, dropping them off on higher ground - and in the rain - without any more help, she added.

Malaysia was once entirely covered in trees, but nearly half have now vanished, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The country has lost nearly a fifth of its primary forest since 2002, though deforestation rates have fallen in recent years, according to monitoring service Global Forest Watch (GFW).

Analysts say forest losses may be contributing to the country's worsening floods, with many of the hardest-hit states also showing the highest deforestation rates, statistics from GFW show.

As news reports emerged of rivers and flooded areas awash with logs, opposition politicians called on the government of Pahang state to check on illegal and uncontrolled logging.

Typically, seasonal floods happen more along the eastern coast of the Malaysian peninsula, said climate change adviser Renard Siew at the Centre for Governance and Political Studies think-tank, so the floods last December came as a shock to many urban residents.

They "never thought the time would come when they would actually have to evacuate from their homes for safety," he said.

Climate change played a role in the severity of the rains and floods, he said, but other factors also contributed to the damage, from garbage-clogged city drains to construction on formerly green areas.

Ms Chong's salary barely covers the household bills and her flood-hit family received no clean-up or financial help from the federal government, she said. But local charities, non-government organisations and others stepped in, including Ms Chong's employer - which set up a fund to replace damaged items - while friends chipped in with plates, cups and a rice cooker.

The house is now clean of mud but still needs major repairs, and Ms Chong's wheelchair-bound aunt now lives in temporary accommodation provided by a non-government organisation.

Ms Chong blames the loss of trees - and a lack of investment in flood prevention infrastructure - for her family's losses. "One of the reasons why it floods so much is because they cut down too many trees or burn down trees to make way for developments and palm oil plantations," she said.

REUTERS