Segamat Flood 2011 - The Aftermath

Just a week before Chinese New Year, days of unrelenting rain has hit the sleepy town of Segamat and causing the Segamat river to swell, and subsequently the repeat of what happened 4 years ago.

As many braced themselves for the worse, many have tried to find ways on how to even enter the quiet town to visit their loved ones only to find their efforts in vain as flood waters cut off main federal roads which connects the town to the highways.

The flood water has brought devastation but fortunately, as quickly as the flood came into the homes of thousands of people in the town, it left in a hurry as well, leaving the people some time to prepare themselves for the festival.

The flood started on a rainy Sunday on the 30th Jan 2011, and the water started receding on the next day. Taman Segar and Kampung Abdullah, the worse hit was free of flood water on Tuesday, 1st Feb 2011. Power and water supply was restored on the day as well.

Mud stained furniture seen left outside houses aat Taman Segar, waiting to be collected by local council workers. 

 A Chinese ethnic burning joss paper as a normal local ritual here after prayer, and another younger member of the family looks on in despair.

 The local secondary school which was hit by the flood.

 

A debris and garbage covered local nursery's playground.

Sections of asphalt road seen swept off by flood waters to the side of the road.

Malaysian army were seen in many areas of the town helping civilians and public establishments.

Playground at a nearby park being flooded.

Part of the railroad foundation was being excavated to make way for the flood water, which caused the service to be out for few days.

Within the next days, railway workers were seen fixing the rail road. And on the 5th Feb 2011, the service was already back to normal. 

Early after the flood, Malaysian government has announced the use of early warning system assisted with satellite technology and funds allocated which its cost exceeds as much as billions of ringgit. My only hope that with these large amount of funds, which are tax payers money could be effectively used to curb and totally avoid such occurrences from happening again.

Although we have seen the swift actions of government departments and the royal military in actions, working quickly to assist those who needed help and in the rebuilding of public services, but from what we have seen in 2006 once with 60,000-70,000 civilians were evacuated and RM 1.5 billion reported loss, and the current 2011 year with 47,000 evacuated with the losses still being calculated, what actions from the current government to avoid these disastrous tragedies from reoccurring will be served as a important consideration to win the people's support in the near future.